The Break Free Trilogy (Book 3): Through The Frozen Dawn (2 page)

T
he night had been cold
. Kaylee didn't sleep well. The men hadn't rested long, just a few hours. The rest of their trek was made quietly, shuffled footsteps in the dark.

Now Kaylee felt her eyelids drooping and she leant forward to rest her head against the cold side of a dark blue sedan. The clop of the horses hooves on the pavement died out as they were led around the side of the building. She heard the side door of the old Wal-Mart being wrenched open and the raucous greeting of another dozen men inside. She took a deep breath and looked down. Flakes of rust had settled on the pavement and the rain had battered it over the years into swirls of brown patterns against the gray concrete. It overlapped, like rings on a pond when a rock was skipped across the surface. She counted them, seven, eight, nine, taking a deep breath for each ring.

She had the gun she took from Emma. But she only had twelve bullets. She knew how to shoot it, anyone who had ever seen a movie understood that you pointed it away from yourself and pulled the trigger. But that was all she really knew. She found her palms itching for something else to grip. Her eyes followed the twisted lines of the cars, scanning backseats. She rose to peek into a trunk that hung open.

She only had twelve shots. Even if she could hit her target with every bullet, and she wasn't especially hopeful that she could, there were at least thirty men in there. After the bullets were gone, the gun became a useless hunk of heavy metal that would barely scratch a man if she threw it at him.

Tucked into the corner of the open trunk the black handle to a small hatchet peeked out. She reached forward. Her fingers tightened on the rubber grip. The blade was dull and rusted, but heavy. An uneasy feeling swamped her belly, churning the bile that lay dormant there. Her fingers spasmed on the hatchet, gripping it so fiercely that her knuckles blanched.

She would have to kill them.

Not all. She couldn't even if she wanted to. But some. It would come to that. And some small part of her felt a tinge of relief that she knew she could.

It wouldn't be like killing the infected. There would be no mercy in it. The feel of an axe in her hands, the heft of it, the resistance as it met flesh and the force she had to exert to cut through the sinew; it came over her suddenly, almost blacking out the vision she had in front of her, almost stealing her away. She pulled the inside of her cheek through her teeth and bit hard, hard enough to taste the metallic tang of blood. But though it reminded her of the shed, of the blood from her and Danny and Cynthia that stained and mingled together on the floor, it grounded her too, brought her back to the shadowy grouping of rusty cars where she hid and the feel of the small hatchet, warm and ready in her hand.

She looked up quickly. The side door had swung shut. There was one man left outside, though he seemed distracted. He was standing on the side of the building, the side closest to her. His back was to a faded metal door and his eyes kept darting from the empty front entrance, to the closed door behind him. A faint shout rose from inside the massive store and he jumped, muttered a dismissive curse under his breath. He yanked the door open. It banged against the side of the building, wavering a bit before it started to swing shut. Kaylee watched quietly from her perch by the cars, the gun warm in her waistband, the hatchet firmly in her grip. The door swung slowly, met the door jamb. She waited to hear the click of its final closing, the sound of a bolt sliding home. But it didn't come. No one came back to check.

She sucked in a quick breath, rose to her feet, and sprinted across the parking lot.

Kaylee inched the door open just enough to fit her frame through. The interior of the Wal-Mart was pitch black. A stench wafted from the empty space beyond the door and out into the parking lot. It smelled of dirty socks and sewage. Kaylee grit her teeth and pressed forward, her toes catching immediately on piles of soiled linen. She paused, pulling the door closed behind her. It caught with a soft click and she let go of the handle, stilling in the dark to let her eyes adjust. She could hear the yells and shouts coming from the front of the store. They were peppered with crashes and dull thuds. Someone was groaning. Her heart sped up and her throat felt clogged. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the hatchet but she had never felt more useless before.

Something closer, softer and yet more distinct than the beatings she could hear drifted closer.

"That's right, sweetheart, this way." It was a man's voice, urging someone forward. It got louder as the sentence ended, closer to where Kaylee was standing. A flicker of a light, red and small, like the end of a cigarette, shone through the empty racks next to Kaylee and she dropped to her stomach, nestling under the piles of dirty laundry she had been standing on. She crammed the hand holding the hatchet into the twisted folds of a sheet, making sure it was covered. She pulled her gun from her waistband with her free hand and tucked that under her chest.

If she shot now, they'd know. The entire population of the store would hear and descend upon her. She wouldn't be able to run. Even if she was able to get out the door and into the parking lot, there was no way she'd make it across and not be within target distance. Her back tensed at the thought of a bullet piercing her as she sprinted.

The sound of boots on the floor drifted closer. Kaylee kept still. She breathed slowly, fetid air filling her lungs. There must have been a year's worth of filth in the dirty laundry. Clothing, sheets, ripped shreds of cloth, towels, they were all saturated with a mixture of sweat and urine and grime, piling several feet high in places and covering the stretch of the row.

"Sit," the voice instructed, closer to Kaylee than she had realized. Someone sat inches from her hatchet.

"Are they going to kill them?"

Anna's voice was soft. Her words carried in the dark corner of the store. The man laughed, a defeated bark that died quickly.

"Don't worry, you'll survive this," he said.

Kaylee shifted and she felt Anna tense next to her. She didn't dare speak, the guard was too close. She heard him as he backed away, the change as his boots left the piled laundry and met solid tile. He was pacing, agitated at the mouth of the hall.

Kaylee reached out, her fingers grasping until she met the warm skin of Anna's wrist. She pressed lightly but didn't grab, terrified that Anna might call out. She didn't. Her pulse leapt, bounding against Kaylee's fingertips, but she didn't move.

The approach of another man startled Kaylee. A rough voice called out.

"Willie? Riley wants you up front."

"Thanks, Joe. I'm fine here," the guard answered. There was a defiance in his tone, firm and annoyed.

"Riley says you're not. Up front," Joe said. Kaylee stiffened when she heard a gun cock. One of the men, Kaylee wasn't sure who, grunted.

Footsteps faded towards the front of the store and under cover of a man's chuckling, Kaylee whispered, "It's me."

Anna didn't respond; but she shifted her hands, bound together with a zip tie, closer to Kaylee. She had nothing but the dull hatchet but she brought the blade to Anna's wrists and pressed, sawing in the darkness.

"Well, well," a voice called out. He shifted closer. "Where are you at, girlie?"

Anna didn't respond and Kaylee pressed harder with the blade. She could feel the plastic stretch, biting into Anna's wrist.

"Gonna make me find you?" he asked. It was Joe, the new guard, the one with a cocked gun. "I can play that game."

Kaylee felt the tie snap apart under the hatchet. Her hand pitched forward at the loss of resistance, catching along Anna's forearm. From the hiss she released, Kaylee knew she had cut her.

"There you are," Joe whispered, lunging forward in the dark. Kaylee froze, her muscles clenched as his knee grazed her ribs. In the darkness, she could just see his outline, his hands reaching for Anna's belt, her arms still bent behind her. Kaylee tensed, ready to spring.

Fingers, firm and fierce, gripped her hand. Anna was waiting, telling her to wait, too. She gripped her back, communicating understanding. The man was breathing fast and laughing under his breath.

"Don't have much fight in you, do you?" he grunted. Kaylee watched him struggle with Anna's pants, bending closer to her as he tried to peel them off.

Without warning, Anna lunged forward, her hands reaching for the man's neck. Her small fingers found the fleshy spots on either side of his windpipe and crushed, digging into his skin fiercely. His breathing was choked off and he swung, grazing the side of Anna's face with a closed fist. He was gurgling, trying to scream, but the tight grip Anna had on his throat wouldn't let him. Kaylee sprang up, hatchet in hand. She pulled her arm back and swung. With a choked cry he fell to the left, missing her blow by an inch. Anna rolled with him and Kaylee saw his fist rise again.

She swung with her blade, meeting his fist in mid air. He grunted as his hand smashed into the solid metal. Kaylee felt the hit reverberate up her arm and she lost her grip on the hatchet. He kicked out at her and caught her arm, sending the weapon flying.

The man reached behind, grappling for something he left on one of the shelves. His free hand bat at Anna, catching her a few times in the face but unable to really get a hold of her. Kaylee saw the sheen of the gun he was reaching for on the shelf, felt her own fingers tighten around the handle of the Glock she held. She grabbed a fistful of laundry and jumped at the man. She saw Anna's fingers lose their grip and the man take a searing breath. Kaylee pressed the laundry to his head and shoved the barrel of her gun into the soiled folds. She pulled the trigger without thought. The man fell limp beneath her.

The gunshot echoed in the aisle. Muffled, but not by much. The shouts and jeers from the front of the store stopped. Kaylee heard nothing but the soft whimpering that must have come from either Andrew or Bill.

The body underneath her was still warm. Something hot was staining her fingers, spreading. She couldn't see the carnage in the dark and she didn't want to.

"They heard that," Anna whispered. "We have to go."

"Andrew," Kaylee said, the words coming through wooden lips.

"We have to hide," Anna said in a rush. She lunged forward and grabbed the gun Joe had left on the shelf, turning back towards Kaylee. She heard her buckle her belt in the darkness.

They ran along the back of the store, wary of the men they could hear coming in their direction. The men found Joe. In the ambient light of the flashlights, Anna and Kaylee climbed a distant shelf. It had once been a toy section and the flimsy shelves wouldn't have held much. But neither girl weighed much. The shelves were metal and held an odd arrangement of clearance toys, cheap plastic dinosaurs, scooters, a Barbie kitchen play set. Anna and Kaylee stretched out along the top, head to head, their backs to the wall. Boxes of toddler ride-on toys hid them from the rest of the store.

"Are you okay?" Kaylee asked in a whisper. The men were cursing Joe as an idiot, assuming he had somehow let Anna get his gun off him.

"Yes, you?"

"I'm fine."

"Thank you," Anna said, her voice trailing off as a flashlight lit the wall behind them. "Don't know what I would have..."

Kaylee didn't answer. Someday, sometime, she may feel guilty for ending Joe's life. But at the moment, she didn't. She was scared and angry. She wanted to get Andrew and Bill away from these monsters and back to her sister and Jack. She wanted to feel safe for once, not always running, not always wondering what was around the next corner. Someday, she may find room for guilt. But she couldn't be bothered to muster any now.

The lights faded and someone suggested that maybe Anna had made a run for it. Another man laughed. "Think she'll remember what we told her?" The whole group dissolved into laughter, apparently not bothered that Anna had gotten away.

"They kept saying they'd let me go," Anna whispered, for the first time Kaylee heard the tremble in her voice, "eventually."

She felt an overwhelming sickness and anger at these men, if they could even be called men. The world ended and they used it as an excuse to act like animals. They didn't deserve the good things that were left.

"How many bullets do you have?" she whispered to Anna.

"Six."

"That makes seventeen then."

"Not enough," Anna said through clenched teeth.

"Maybe we could take one hostage? Make a trade?" Kaylee suggested.

"Well, we can't stay here anyway," Anna said, peeking from behind the box. It was dark again. The group had gravitated toward the front. The girls slipped back down.

The front of the store was set up like a stage. The cash registers all formed one long line and the rows of merchandise were pushed out from there in a large semicircle. It was like a Roman amphitheater, the men in charge sat perched on the registers, camp chairs on planks of wood resting between conveyor belts. The others were spread in a ring, leaving the middle clear. Bill was on his knees, blood dripping from his face. The floor was spattered in red. It shone like gemstones in the light of the camping lanterns that glowed softly.

There was a freezer to the side, a dark glass case. It was the kind of freezer that used to hold milk and eggs, brightly lit in rows down the center of the store. Now it was alone, a dark blot in the center of the mock stage. The door was chained shut. A pad lock was looped through two of the chains to hold it closed, but it was left unlocked. Kaylee couldn't see him at first, but then one of the men kicked at the glass front and something dark shifted inside. Andrew, his fingers smearing the glass as he tried to reach out to her father. He was semi-conscious, barely able to move, and, Kayle was sure, just as bloody as his father.

The girls stood frozen, outnumbered and outgunned, watching as one of the men threw his fist to connect with Bill's bruised jaw.

I
t was
the memory of the burn, more than anything, Emma thought, that sent a flash of heat up her calf every time the muscle flexed underneath. The skin, splotched with red but also with pink now, moved with the muscle, shining in the dim light of early morning. There was a light breeze cutting through the empty street. That was helpful. It whispered over her tortured skin, fluttering the fabric of her pants that were cut at the knee.

"How's it feel?"

"Shitty," she answered through grit teeth. The vodka was still clouding her thoughts and she fought against it. Jack tightened his grip on her arm, his fingers pinching through the leather arm of the jacket. It was Andrew's jacket. Worn leather that was far too big on her, but it was warm and the days were getting colder. It smelled like him, warm and soft with a faint tang of cinnamon. Emma had always thought of Andrew in that way, ever since she could remember, something about his musk, the warm scent of his skin, he always seemed to exude cinnamon. This mingled with hers now, enveloped her and mixed with the natural scent of her own skin. She liked that, liked that they were tangled in some way, even if it was as rudimentary as this.

It was the only safe way she could be close to him anyway. Even if he was still alive.

The thought sent a jolt through her and she stumbled. Jack jerked her upright again, wisely keeping his mouth shut as a string of curses flew from her mouth. She had to swear, shout out her frustration. The raw flood of tears was already clogging her throat and she refused to unleash them. She yelled instead and gave way when Jack slowly lowered her to the ground.

"I have never felt more useless!" she growled, shifting her weight on the cold asphalt, leaning to dislodge a small rock from underneath her. Jack crouched next to her, his head hanging down. She could just see his nod of agreement. His hand flit over his side, probably checking for blood. It did that now and then, the wound he received from a metal rod that pierced his body. It had happened after the dam broke, in the torrents of water that had swept them downstream, the breaking of concrete that took her father's life. Jack wasn't fully healed. It didn't help that Kaylee had been pouncing on him every chance she got. But he never told her no.

"They're not dead," Jack whispered. Now Emma was wise enough to keep her mouth shut.

It had been sixteen hours, more or less, since Kaylee had taken off after Andrew and the others. Emma burned at the thought, her sister; her kind, loving, not in any way dangerous sister, was chasing down a group of men who had kidnapped their friends. It was possible they were alive. Emma didn't think the men who had captured Andrew, Anna, and Bill were likely to kill them right away. If so, they would have shot them here, in the street, not drag them off. But surely they had arrived at their destination by now, had the opportunity to question them and decide what to do next. Anna they might want. The men they would kill. And Anna would probably be wishing they had killed her too by now.

The thought caused a little catch to form in Emma's chest and she coughed to dislodge it.

And what about Kaylee?

Her teeth came down hard, grinding together and straining the muscle into a tight bulge in her cheeks. She wished she had more confidence in her older sister, but no memory of Kaylee could stir it. She wanted to run, to follow them, chase them down and fight. Because she knew Kaylee couldn't.

She had taken the gun. Obviously she meant to use it. Emma had been arguing with herself since Jack told her that Kaylee was gone, that she was chasing down a group of armed men. He had been right to let her go. Emma knew that. But she bristled with fear and restless rage, needing to get up, out of the attic, and move. Jack had been a constant stream of hope and he forced that hope down her throat at every opportunity. It annoyed her at first, she spent the morning searching herself for that same strain of comfort, that lie that said that Kaylee could fight and win and get them back.

She couldn't find it.

"You underestimate her, you know," Jack spoke suddenly. She jerked up, surprised to find his eyes trained on her. She swallowed convulsively and looked back down. "She's stronger than you think."

"It's not that," Emma mumbled, shaking her head against the hot moisture gathering in her eyes. She took a sharp breath and looked up. "She's never shot a gun, can't kill the biters, can barely start a fire. Armed with twelve bullets, you think she can take out that group?"

She saw his fear, it was plain in the dying light. His features spasmed in pain but his jaw set regardless.

"She has to."

"Because you need her to. It's as simple as that?" Emma huffed.

"No, because
she
has to," he argued. "She loves you too much to leave you. Just as she loves Andrew and Anna and Bill too much to leave them. She'll find a way. Because living without you just isn't acceptable to her."

"Or without you," Emma added kindly. Jack's lips pressed in a tight line together but he nodded in acknowledgement. "So how long do we wait for them?"

"Well," he grunted, getting back on his feet, "we can't leave until you can keep up a steady jog anyway. So up you get."

She gripped the hand he extended firmly, letting him haul her back up. His hand was steady on her arm as he nudged her forward. One foot at a time, she trudged painfully to and fro across the empty street.

She disagreed with him; but since he was keeping her upright at the moment, she didn't voice it. Her not being able to jog was not the biggest obstacle. At the moment, the biggest problem was that they had no idea which way Kaylee had gone. She had run off, following the men on horseback; and Jack, holed up in the attic, had not seen in which direction. He was able to make a guess, from the muffled sounds he heard. But even he admitted he couldn't be sure. Which meant they had no way to find them, no way to chase them down to help.

If they left, tried to find their way to Kaylee and the rest, and they guessed wrong, or lost the trail, and then Kaylee came back, they may never find each other again. The world, always seeming so small to Emma, so enclosed and claustrophobic at times, was suddenly blown wide open. Her heart beat uncomfortably fast in her chest and she lurched forward, putting more weight on her leg than before.

Panic beat its way up her throat and left no room in her brain for pain. She moved faster, dragging Jack along.

"I'm better. We should go," she said, her words coming out in more of a squeak than she would have liked. Jack cleared his throat and looked pointedly around. "Well, we can't just sit here!"

"And when they come back? When they come here looking for us and we're not around, what then?"

"We can leave markers," Emma suggested, limping over to the nearest driveway. At the end of the short pavement, heaving with cracks and bumps, the mouth to a garage yawned open. Emma ducked inside, making her way to a shelf full of paint and pulling a few spray cans down. She shook them experimentally, encouraged when the ball inside rattled around. Jack was just behind her. She turned to find him frowning. He took the paint when she shoved it at him anyway.

It took less than half an hour to have all their belongings packed into backpacks and slung over their shoulders. A pint of vodka was nestled in the bottom of Emma's though she hoped she wouldn't need it. Already she was breathing heavily from the morning's exertion. Her calf ached but she refused to acknowledge it. It was a horrible, dull pain that would flare without warning, feeling like fire shooting up her nerve endings. There was a blister already forming inside her mouth along her bottom lip from clamping her teeth around the soft flesh to avoid crying out. It didn't matter now, nothing did but finding her sister.

And Bill, Anna, Andrew...

The last name was soft in her mind, a pleading cry that he be okay. Her insides felt disconnected, jostling about her stomach and chest, when she thought about those faceless men who had taken them.

She had made Jack tell her every detail as they walked back and forth across the empty street this morning. What they sounded like, the words they used, if they had hit anyone, hurt them in any way. He told her, haltingly, but completely.

She watched him now. He looked calmer than she felt, walking from car to empty car, checking visors for keys and peering into the homes they were parked in front of for obvious key racks. She jumped when he smashed through a window, sending glass scattering into the home and on the lawn.

It was almost callous, the way he went about business. They needed to hold supplies, he found backpacks to carry them. They needed food, he dug some cans out of a nearby garage. They needed a car, he was in the process of stealing them one.

He hadn't mentioned her sister's name. Not once.

She frowned. He drew his hand through the broken glass of the window, keys dangling from his fingers. He didn't look towards her, just walked to the truck parked in the driveway and yanked the door open. The car sputtered, the engine turning over as he twist the key, but after a couple tries, it roared to life.

"Ready?" he asked, speaking for the first time since he agreed to leave with her. She nodded.

"Oh, wait," she said, pausing in the middle of the road. He moved closer towards her as she pulled out her spray paint. In a giant sweep, she laid down a circle of paint that enclosed her and Jack. He added the eyes and she drew the smiley face mouth, remembering to put a tongue hanging out of the stick mouth. It was Andrew's mark, the one they had used forever to indicate that buildings had been cleared of food, the one that decorated the side of their missing motorhome. Kaylee would recognize this and know exactly what it meant.

Jack shook his can, it rattled in the cold air. He laid down an arrow, pointing in the direction he believed the men took off. He tucked the can in his backpack. They'd leave markers as they went. A way for Kaylee and the others to find them, or a way to find their way back, just in case.

Looking back, she couldn't be sure why they didn't hear them. It could have been that the sounds were drowned out in the rush of nature, the calls of birds and the brush of fallen leaves. It might have been the truck engine, rattling and spurting but humming a steady kind of hum that Emma recognized. Or it may have been that they were too focused, too fearful for Kaylee and the others and too trusting that they themselves were safe.

Emma looked into her own backpack, tucking her paint safely away. When she looked back to Jack, she froze for an infinitesimal moment.

Gaping, her jaw slack, black tongue protruding, an infected woman lunged for Jack. Emma jolted forward, pushing Jack to the side and collapsing on top of the biter. Her flesh was loose and rubbery, her chest caving in when Emma landed on her. The jaw never stopped moving. The biter's neck craned, the stench of rotten breath clouded Emma's face as the head moved lower and jaws snapped hungrily. Emma felt the scrape of teeth against her collarbone, the cold flesh of seeking lips clammy on her exposed skin.

She jerked back, crying out. The sound of the biter's head smashing against the concrete drowned her out. Jack brought his boot down twice, crushing the skull, before the body fell still.

She heard the moans then. Not from her, but from the rest. A swell of infected, hundreds, filled the street, swarmed from over the hill and through the suburban yards. They crashed through shrubbery, trampled the neighborhood fences. Emma grabbed at Jack's hand and let him pull her to her feet.

"Are you okay?" he asked. They moved as one to the truck. Jack stopped, staring at her when she got in the bed of the truck instead of the cab. She pulled her shirt down and to the side, exposing the long, bleeding tooth marks on her chest.

"I'll be fine," she said, sitting down. "But, just in case, it's better if I'm back here."

He stared for one short moment and then nodded. "Hold tight," he muttered, jumping behind the wheel and throwing the truck in reverse.

She jerked against the truck bed's window, slamming it with her back and then collapsing to her knees. She gripped the sides of the truck as Jack spun into the road, throwing it in forward before hitting the gas. The infected were close, close enough to scrape their cracked fingernails on the bumper. But they couldn't move fast enough to keep up with the truck. The horde grew smaller behind them. Emma let her fingers drift over the scratch on her collarbone, they came away wet. She stuck her hands out in front of her, but with the wind whipping around her and the truck bumping on the crumbling asphalt, it was impossible to tell if they were shaking. She felt sickened, a tightening in the base of her stomach. There was a brief flash of panic.

It might not be that she was immune to the infection entirely, maybe it was just that one biter. Maybe whatever Anna did for her directly after, cleaning the wound and pumping her full of antibiotics, maybe that's what had made the difference. She pressed her hands to her face, holding the sides of her head tightly, trying to see if the tremors were starting. She couldn't tell.

She didn't feel any different. But her stomach continued to roil. She didn't want to change, didn't want to die, but the thought that she may share some commonalities with the animals chasing them in the street, common enough to not get infected by them when they bit, it disgusted her. She hated that her body would betray her like this, that in some basic way, she was one of them.

The truck bed bounced underneath her and she grit her teeth. There was no point in worrying about that now. They were getting further and further from the direction Kaylee had gone.

Their bags were thrown in the bed of the truck, some basic weapons along with them. They didn't have anything fancy. A machete Jack found in one of the garages, a couple hatchets and a rusted ax. Jack had sharpened the handle of a wooden broom into spear-like object. Emma reached forward and pulled this into her hands. She swept her gaze around the street behind her and found no infected. Jack wasn't slowing though.

She turned and pulled herself to a stand, gripping the truck cab for balance. The wind whipped at her face, throwing her hair back in brown tangles behind her. She squinted into the rush of air, one hand gripped the on top of the truck cab and the other held fast to her crude spear.