Free Betrayal by Michael S. Gardner Page A

before someone found us.” Bell laid his hands on Jonathan’s shoulders. “And you know what? The sick fuck that found us just so happened to be a man with a cure for the infection.”
    Jonathan’s eyes went wide and he tried taking in a breath. He spat out a glob of blood and said, “Someone found… the cure? We can… We can—”
    “I didn’t say he found the cure; I said he found a cure. Did you notice my eyes? A bright orange they are, yes?” Bell chuckled. “I guess you can call it a side effect of what that bastard injected us with. Oh, did I forget to mention,” he rubbed the neck wound, “that he infected us beforehand?”
    “You’re infected?” Jonathan asked between coughs.
    “Say,” said Bell, “what’s the name of that daughter of yours, anyway? Tina, right?”
    Jonathan nodded and pulled his pistol out. “You’ll never hurt my baby.”
    “Oh, but I will.” Bell grabbed the mechanic’s gun hand and moved it to the right, where his first and only shot struck the wall. “But not before I hurt you.” The Sarge squeezed so hard Jonathan’s hand broke in several places.
    T he mechanic screamed as his pistol fell beside his right foot.
    Bell threw him into the opposite wall; Jonathan’s neck snapped from the impact, but he wasn’t dead. Laying in a sprawl, Jonathan watched the Sarge pull out and light another cigar. Blinking rapidly, he thought of Christina, his daughter, and what this sick fuck was going to do with her.
     
    ***
     
    Carol Beswith heard the first gunshots coming from the slop line. She’d talked with a few patrolmen about the idea of picking up and leaving if Trevor and the others hadn’t made it back by the next day, and how they were going to pick and choose those most able to survive the trip. She had no idea where they would go, but she couldn’t afford the liability of someone who was either unwilling or unable to hold their own out in the deadlands. But that first echo of gunfire threw a wrench into her plan.
    The three guards drew their firearms and made for the detached garage as a flurry of people swarmed the yard like chickens with their heads cut off. Parents were chasing after their children; older folks were urging their loved ones on by pulling and pushing them away from the slop line.
    Carol felt her heart jump in her throat as Rafael gave chase to Jonathan’s daughter and pounced on her like a rabid beast. One of the colonists ran up and speared him off the poor girl with his shoulder, but only sacrificed himself. Rafael tore into the man’s throat, a rush of crimson spilling as he peeled back a slab of flesh. Christina, the little girl, got up to run just as one of the guards took aim at Rafael. The bullet that should have ended the head of security’s meal dug its way home in the back of Christina’s head instead. The guard who fired the shot looked to the gun, then to the girl, and then turned the weapon on himself.
    On the other side of the property at the East Outpost, a group of citizens were making their way up the stairs and onto the wall. Two shadowy figures were chasing them down, arms outstretched.
    Carol’s chin sank onto her chest. All that she had worked to preserve, the lives of numerous people that had counted on her and the others, was falling apart as quick as the world did just two years ago. Rafael, who was now nowhere in sight, hadn’t taken much flesh from the man who had briefly saved Christina; he was lumbering to his feet, a new life force flowing within him. As soon as an elderly couple ambled past him, the newest living corpse was in pursuit. From the direction of the detached garage, Carol could clearly make out smoke billowing skyward and the tips of flames as they licked the opposite end of a few homes.
    She wanted to cry, to plop down right where she was and accept that God just didn’t want her or anyone else left alive on this planet . Yet her will to survive drove her forward, creeping in the shadow of the