Free The Infected (Book 6): Last Shot by Justin Gowland Page A

back inside the armoury.
    “TOM! I JUST WANT TO TALK!” I shouted out.
    His reply was two more shots and two more holes in the door to the gym. I heard running and turned toward the noise with the pistol in hand. Amy and David pulled to a stop and held their hands up.
    David slowly lowered his hands “What’s happening? Jake managed to raise me on one of the radios we keep in my office he said there was shooting outside the radio room in the hallway. Amy was coming out of Doc’s office and we headed straight here.”
    I turned back to watch the door “It looks like Tom has decided to work for Benton’s again.”
    “What the fuck are you going on about Marc?” Amy said.
    Just then, Chris came out of the armoury carrying an MP5 and was just pulling back the charging handle. He beckoned Amy and David over and started talking to them in a hushed whisper.
    “TOM! COME ON MATE, I JUST WANT TO TALK!” I shouted at the door.
    “Fuck off you all want to kill me” a muffled reply from inside the gym.
    “Look if we don’t settle this reasonably, then yeah you probably will end up dying. Come on talk to me.” I heard a murmur of whispered voices and turned to see that a crowd had gathered further up the hallway. David and Amy were talking to them and Chris was standing a few feet away from me with his rifle.
    “Look, Tom, we are starting to get a crowd out here. It might be easier if I came in there and we can talk properly.” Out the corner of my eye, I saw Chris shaking his head.
    “Send them away!” Tom’s voice cried from inside the gym.
    “Chris, see if you can get to David and Amy to shift them further back. The last thing I want is for anyone to get hurt if this turns into a shooting match.”
    Chris looked at the crowd and then at me “Don’t you fucking dare go in there. For all we know this was all too just kill you.”
    I just nodded my head. He turned and slowly walked up the hallway and started talking with David, Amy and the crowd. I could see some panicked faces amongst them and Amy looked really pissed off.  That was actually something that I was starting to get used to. After perhaps five minutes of conversation, Amy and David started to move people away from the gym and toward the lifts.
    Chris made his way back down and stood holding the MP5 in the crook of his broken arm. His face looked like thunder and I knew that if I let him in the gym with Tom then we would end up with a dead body and no answers.
    “Are you going to talk to me Tom?”
    “Have you sent the others away?” He called out through the closed door.
    “Yeah, they’ve been told to leave. Now can Chris and I come in?”
    There was a large pause from the other side of the door.
    “Come on Tom there is no way you’re getting out of there, not the way things are heading.”
    “Ha! If you both come in here one or both of you are going to kill me.”
    I had to admit he had me on that one. I knew Chris wanted to kill him as soon as he saw the little shit. The only thing stopping him going in there and trying to kill him was that fact that he wasn’t in tip top condition. I was about to point this out to Tom when Mike came trotting down the hallway.
    “Is it fucking true?” He asked stopping on the other side of Chris.
    I nodded and Chris started to whisper what had happened up until now. Mike’s face went hard when Chris mentioned the explosives in the armoury.
    “Marc?” Tom shouted.
    “Yeah?”
    There was a slight pause “Could you come in by yourself?”
    Chris started to wave his hands saying no and Mike was doing the same. To tell the truth I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do at the minute, but the idea of just trying to starve him out seemed to come to mind. As soon as I thought it I regretted even thinking it. How could I explain to Rosa that we had starved her boyfriend to death?
    “Look I would love to but you and I know that I am the main target for Benton’s and therefore you,” I said.
    “That might