13 Bullets

Caxton reached for her weapon but then stopped. She could hear dozens of feet pounding down the corridor towards her. She only had five bullets left. There was no way she could take on all the half-deads using the gun.

She switched on her light and pointed it at them. Their torn faces and their glassy eyes reflected the light perfectly. They were dressed in filthy clothes. One wore eyeglasses. A couple were missing hands or arms. There had to be at least twelve of them and they were all armed with kitchen knives, with sharpened screwdrivers, with hatchets or cleavers. One had a pitchfork. When the light hit them their mouths went wide and they ran at her even faster.

If she stayed where she was they would simply cut her down. She flicked off the light and dashed sideways, toward an empty doorway. The door itself lay flat on the floor of the room beyond as if its hinges had rotted away.

There was a window at the far end of the room but she could see instantly that it was barred. The room looked like a jail cell-what had it been, the psychiatric ward?

She could hear them coming. She'd run into the room on pure instinct, just trying to get away. Had they seen her? She didn't know if half-deads saw any better in the dark than human beings. Had they seen her? She threw herself against the wall to one side of the door and breathed through her mouth. She heard them outside in the hall, their feet pounding on the linoleum tiles, their hands thumping against the plaster walls. Had they seen where she went? They had to be close. They had to be getting closer.

They went right past her. She couldn't be sure but she thought they'd walked right past the door-she had to be sure.

She leaned out a little into the doorway to get a look and found one of them staring right back. His face was striped and raw where he'd torn away his own skin. His eyes were less hateful than pathetic, full of a weary sadness more profound than anything she could imagine.

Without even thinking about it she reached up with both hands and grabbed his head and twisted and yanked and pulled. He screamed but his flesh tore. It felt less like grappling with a human body than as if she were pulling a branch off a tree. Bones crackled inside his neck as his vertebrae gave way and then she was suddenly holding a human head. The eyes looked right into her-sadness transformed entirely into fear-and the mouth kept moving but it no longer had the breath or the larynx to scream with.

"Ugh," she said, and threw the head into the room's shadowy corners. Out in the hall his body kept walking but it had lost all its coordination. It was just muscles twitching with no purpose. Guilt and disgust erupted inside of her and she thought she might throw up. She glanced in the dark corner, wondering if the head was still moving. Wondering how much that hurt, to be beheaded but not killed outright. Then she remembered the half-deads who had taunted her on the roof of Farrell Morton's fishing camp. She thought about the one who attacked her with a shovel-and the one who had stood outside her window and tricked Deanna into cutting herself to ribbons. Then the guilt flew away on moth wings. The headless body kept walking and soon enough it came up against a wall and started beating itself to pieces, its shoulder digging into the wall as if it wanted to push its way through.

The rest of the half-deads turned to look. They stood in the hallway in loose formation, their weapons out and ready but not pointed at her. They had walked past without knowing she was in the room-if she hadn't looked, they might have gone right past her. It was hard to tell in the deeply dark hallway but she thought they looked surprised.

The pitchfork the headless body had been holding on to fell to bounce with a jangling sound on the floor. She scooped it up in both hands and felt its weight. It was heavy and over-balanced, the metal tines drooping low to the floor when she tried to lift it. It was a ludicrous weapon and one she'd never been trained to use. She dropped it. It clanged on the linoleum. Then she drew her Glock. The crowd of half-deads moved backwards. Away from her. That was good. Some of them raised their hands, though they didn't drop their weapons. She pointed the handgun at one of them, then another. She made them wince. They couldn't know how many bullets she had left. She stepped out into the hallway, keeping them covered. She would shoot the first one that moved. Maybe that would scare them enough that they would scatter like frightened rats. She really hoped so.

One of them had a pair of kitchen shears. He worked them nervously, the blades glinting in the few stray beams of moonlight. Another one wore a dark blue Penn State sweatshirt with the hood up around his ruined face. He was carrying a ball peen hammer. He could break her arm in a second if he got too close. She took a step backward. The half-deads took a step forward. It wasn't going to work. They would stop being scared in a second or two and they would rush her. There was no way she could survive if they all attacked her at once. If she didn't shoot one of them soon they would call her bluff and it would be over. She picked one. The one with the pitchfork. He didn't look as scared as the others. Taking her time, lining up her shot, she aimed right at his heart and fired, thinking even as she squeezed the trigger, "four."

The half-dead's chest burst open and a stench of rotten meat rolled across her. For a second the others drew back.

Then they started moving toward her again. Their weapons brandished in their pale hands they advanced on her as if they knew exactly what she was thinking. As if they'd been counting her shots too and they knew she didn't have a chance. She fired again, wildly, cursing herself even as she snapped off an unaimed shot. If it hit anything she didn't stick around to see. She ran back along the corridor, back the way she'd come. She could feel them behind her, chasing her. She could hear their feet slapping on the linoleum in the dark. Could they see better in the gloom than she could? She didn't know. She didn't know at all. She flicked on her light, more interested in seeing where she was going than in not giving away her position.

She pushed open a door and skidded around a corner, nearly collided with a filing cabinet somebody had left right in the middle of the hall. She pushed it over, adrenaline giving her the strength, and its clattering fall echoed all around her. Maybe one or two of the half-deads would trip over it.

Her breath froze her throat as it rushed in and out of her, and she ran, the light of her flashlight jumping up and down on the walls and floors ahead of her.