Free Edge Walkers by Shannon Donnelly Page B

remembered leaving meat in her fridge, working a week straight through. She’d found the meat rotting a week after that. If she’d stuck it on a grill, it might have smelled this bad.
    But it was their eyes that trapped her with her pulse skidding into overdrive. There wasn’t anything she recognized, just burnt sockets with light leaking out in bright bursts.
    And one of them had on a white lab coat. Like hers.
    No—please no. Throat tight, hands clenched into fists, she forced her stare to stay on that one figure, prayed it couldn’t be what she’d thought. It sure as hell wasn’t a ‘who’ anymore and she wanted to smash something into a face that shouldn’t have those odd, glowing eyes. That face should be smiling and whole and…oh, god, it had been Chand’s face. Not anymore.
    Its eyes crackled with inhuman light, bursts of white static. Sparks crawled out from holes torn into Chand’s flesh, danced over burnt-black skin before sliding back into him. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep anything from coming out. She knew the shape of Chand, the curl of dark hair, the skinny body that would never be more than a walking corpse. She could no longer see Chand inside—just edges of something else poking out.
    Heart pounding to sickening thuds, she darted a stare around for an escape. She glimpsed walls—and a barrier at her back, keeping her from her lab, her world.
    Gideon stepped closer, knife flashing. Temple crowded in on her right, shielding her. The Walkers moved in with erratic speed. They seemed not to notice Gideon or Temple, but fixed those sparking eyes on her.
    This was her nightmare again. That sharp shred of ozone, a rising scream like metal tearing itself apart. Her vision telescoped, sharpened as Gideon pushed her and she fell. She looked up to see him grab one of those not-human things and slice. Blood spurted, so did light—dear god, light? It poured out of the gash. The thing exploded into a red flash that streaked the room. Bone and blood and body splattered. Carrie ducked, covering her face as searing ash hit her skin. She choked out a gurgle from a throat gone tight with raw terror.
    Overhead a black line split, sucked in the light and a swirl of blackness that spilled from the Walker. Gideon whirled, grabbed Carrie’s arm, dragged her up and screamed, “Get out. Run!”
    She heard a slicing, tearing sound, and the pops of something else crossing. Ozone bloomed into a choking stench. Sharp raps tore the air. Something hit Gideon in the back, knocked him into her. She grabbed for him, caught him by the waist. Someone snagged her from behind, dragged her away from him. Gideon fell. He lay face down in a growing dark pool of his own blood, framed by the gore of others. Carried yelled for him, but more raps burst and pounded, staccato sounds. She knew them now as gunfire. Automatic weapons, and the rounds ripped through the room, pinged off metal and sparked on the walls. Struggling, Carrie lashed out with a kick as someone shouted, “Get Brody the hell out. Move! Move!”
    She stilled enough to take in the five men in fatigues who had crossed into the room from her lab. Walkers that had been closing fell back and down, ripped apart by the barrage of gunfire. Their eyes darkened black before the skin and flesh exploded, letting lose jagged black lines that slipped up and back into the Rift of darkness. Carrie glanced up, her stare pulled by the static that lifted the hair on her arms, by a sense of hungry malice that settled on her. Overhead, balls of jagged lightning hovered in that same dark rip. She looked around again, but couldn’t see Temple. And Gideon was...
    A shiver took her and she choked back a sob and a curse and twisted to look for him. But the guy who had hold of her kept pulling until his grip went limp with a cry, turning her loose so fast she fell to her knees.
    Flattening under the gunfire, she glanced around. The guards weren’t looking at her or even at the bodies