The remaining snipers tried to anticipate her movements, aiming their long rifles to her left. But she planted her feet, jumped straight up, and aimed her pistols down at them as she emptied her magazines. By the time she hit the ground, there was only one sniper left. She sprinted forward and tore the rifle out of his grasp before his mind could process what had happened. Then, spinning to build momentum, she clubbed him on the side of the head with the butt of the rifle. The impact split his skull open at the seams and broke his jaw loose, and he was dead before he toppled over the guard rail and fell to the highway below.
Janson exhaled sharply and dropped to one knee. Her muscles trembled from the prolonged exertion. It had been a long day, and she’d traveled halfway across Maryland without a moment’s rest. Not to mention, she was out of ammo.
She reached for a rifle lying nearby, gripped it, and pulled back on the bolt to chamber another round. A bolt-action was far from ideal, but it would have to work until she could kill a better-equipped Warden. Leaving the bridge, she jogged along a street that ran parallel with Highway 40, tilting her head to listen for the enemy.
The residential street was quiet. Tall, angular houses with boards over their windows stood beside the empty shell of an abandoned convenience store. A rusted swing dangled from a single chain in the center of a weed-infested playground.
Leaves rustled on the untrimmed trees at the edge of the park; Janson slowed to a walk and held her breath. The neighborhood had obviously fallen on hard times long before the apocalypse began, which meant there were plenty of hiding places for the Wardens, and there were too many empty lots to provide her with adequate cover should a firefight break out.
Dried leaves rustled beneath light feet, and a short, stocky woman emerged from the trees. Her hands held the edges of a wool blanket that she wore over her shoulders, and Janson saw no sign of a weapon.
“Don’t shoot,” the woman said. She moved away from the trees and glanced over her shoulder. “I…I know you’re not with them. I saw what you did.”
Janson watched the woman for several seconds, then turned her attention to the dilapidated houses.
The woman shuffled closer. “Can I go with you? I have no one left. They killed my family.”
Something scraped against the ground behind the convenience store, and a faint whisper reached Janson’s ear. She shifted her hips and raised the rifle. “We’re not alone. You need to move away from me. Find somewhere to hide.”
The woman’s voice became desperate. “Don’t leave me alone. I can’t be alone again. Please, take me away from here.”
Janson swiveled her head. There were more whispers, this time coming from behind one of the houses. “Stay back. If they start shooting, it’s going to be at me.”
“I…I can’t.” The woman wrapped her arms around Janson’s waist and held tight. “I can’t do this on my own!”
“Get off of me.” Janson put a hand on the woman’s forehead and began to push, and there was a metallic click.
“What the hell?” Janson tore the blanket away, revealing a thick cable wrapped tight around the woman’s abdomen. And the woman had just locked the free ends together, right above Janson’s hips.
“Now!” someone said, and six men emerged from behind the convenience store. A dozen more moved out from behind the houses, and each man held a submachine gun or rifle.
The woman looked up at Janson and smiled. A wisp of black appeared at the inside corner of her left eye, and she said. “Goodbye, Agent Janson.”
Hillcrest Trauma and Rehabilitation Center
“Lock it down!” Eugene sprinted down the hallway toward the secure elevator. “Lock down the barriers!”
“They’re not responding!” Kacen shouted. He shouldered his rifle, and the hallway echoed with the deafening report.
Eugene glanced back and saw one of the Afflicted pitch head-over-heels and slide along the polished floor, leaving a trail of blood behind. “Then get into the elevator. We’ll set up our defense below ground.”
Kacen’s rifle barked twice more, and Nicole shouted to be heard above the noise. “It won’t open. Somebody locked us out.”
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Kacen, Eugene leveled his rifle and dropped three more Afflicted soldiers who were barreling toward them. They were soon replaced by four more, whom he shot one by one, putting a bullet through each of their foreheads. “This isn’t good. We need to get below ground.”
Kacen took a deep breath. “Get to the stairwell. I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.”
“Hell no,” Eugene snapped. “You and the others go. I’ll stay. My armor will—”
Before he could finish, Nicole shoved past him and Kacen. She was packing a ball of clay in her hands, wrapping it around a tightly knotted cord. “You boys are very brave. But also very stupid.” She connected a rectangular device to the end of the cord, then twisted and pulled a steel ring at the back of the device. “This is a five-second fuse. I suggest you plug your ears.”
Stepping past the dead bodies, Nicole hurled the ball of clay around the corner. She crouched, plugged her ears, and ducked her head.
Eugene felt but didn’t see the explosion. The charge sent a transparent shockwave through the corridor, making him feel like he was inside an enormous bass drum. A few seconds later, a cloud of dust overtook them, bringing visibility down to zero.
“Right,” Eugene said, wiping his face and coughing. “That’s one way to do it.”
Nicole’s voice rose and then descended in pitch as she approached and swept past him. “We have five minutes before they break through, maybe less.”
“All right. Let’s head to the stairs and move toward Sub-Level One. I want to know why we’ve been locked out. The EMP shouldn’t have affected anything inside the building—the elevator should have been working.”
As the dust began to settle, Eugene saw Nicole packing another detonator into a charge. “What are you doing?”
Nicole cast a sideways glance at him. “If someone downstairs has rigged the elevator to keep us out, they might try to let the crazies in. I’m taking no chances.”
“Fair enough. But how about you plug a ten-second fuse into this one?”
Her lips twisted into a half-grin. “Five seconds. If you don’t want a headache, I suggest you get to the stairwell.”
Harlem Park
Dead or alive, the woman was going to slow her down. Janson gripped the padlock, feeling its weight and the weight of the thick steel cable. Time moved in slow motion as the men raised their weapons in perfect unison—eighteen puppets on the same string.
With the woman attached to her hips, Janson wouldn’t be able to evade the shooters for long. Their rounds would strike her armor, knock her down. And if they could keep her pinned, one of them might be able to get close enough to put a shotgun in her mouth and end it all. They had played on what they thought was her weakness—sympathy toward women in need. But the woman attached to her wasn’t an innocent. She was one of them. And Janson owed her no mercy.
They had underestimated her once again, and they would pay for it. She gripped the steel cable with both hands and pulled, taking the slack out and crushing the air out of the woman’s lungs. The woman fell limp and clawed at the cable. She seemed surprised by Janson’s strength, and she wheezed the words, “Kill her,” before Janson thrust upward on the cable, cutting her in two.