Free Mutated - 04 by Joe McKinney

torture her.”
    Sylvia frowned. “We’ll find her,” she said. “I don’t know how, but we’ll find her.”
    She glanced at Richardson. “You ready to move out?”
    Richardson nodded. He couldn’t hear the trucks anymore, but there were still eight of the zombies out there, searching the apartment buildings on the east side of the street.
    Sylvia pointed at two of the zombies trying to pry the plywood off an apartment window across the street. “Those are the smart ones. They’ll search those buildings systematically. We need to leave here as soon as we can.”
    “But what about Niki?” the younger woman said.
    “We’ll find her, Avery. Please, just work with us here, okay? Niki let you come along because she knew you could handle the risk. I need you to be tough now. Can you do that for me?”
    The girl started crying again.
    Richardson looked away.
    It was humid and sticky. Richardson could feel a thick, oily sweat coating the back of his neck, seeping down under his shirt. He watched Sylvia Carnes run her hands through her frizzy gray hair, trying, unsuccessfully, to press it down on the back of her head. She had tied it back into a ponytail with a black piece of cloth, but the band didn’t seem up to the task. It occurred to him that she was actually quite pretty. Prettier than he remembered.
    “What are you looking at?” she said to him.
    “Do you remember me?” he asked. “It was a long time ago, in San Antonio.”
    Her expression didn’t change.
    “Eight years ago? You were leading a group of kids from—”
    “I remember you, Mr. Richardson. I recognized you when I saw you back at the Pizza Hut.”
    He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.
    “So, what brings you to—”
    “It’s a long story, Mr. Richardson. If you don’t mind, I’ve kind of got a lot on my plate at the moment— Oh shit! ”
    Sylvia Carnes was on her feet and running from beneath the awning before Richardson could react. One of the zombies from across the street had spotted them and he was advancing on their hiding spot with a crooked, hobbling gait. But he was moving fast, grunting rather than moaning, his eyes locked on them with the keenness of a cat stalking a bug.
    A rusty ventilator fan had fallen from the wall above them and was resting against a pile of bricks a short distance away. Sylvia reached the fan and scooped it up just as the zombie stepped into the brown patches of weeds on their side of the street. As the zombie closed on her, she swung the fan and caught him on the cheek with one of the blades. The man dropped to his hands and knees, but didn’t cry out. He glanced back up at Sylvia. The shiny red gash on his cheek spread open as he reached for her, revealing a row of busted, bloodstained teeth. Sylvia brought the fan down on the zombie’s face right as he lunged for her, sinking one of the fan blades deep into his forehead. He fell back into the weeds, dead.
    Sylvia whirled on Richardson and the girl. “Run.” She pointed at an eight-foot-high brick wall on the other side of the collapsed awning. “That way. Hurry it up.”
    Responding to the commotion, four other zombies were already crossing the street.
    “Come on,” Richardson said. He grabbed the girl by her upper arm and pulled her to her feet. They ran for the wall, jumped onto a pile of debris that had collected in one corner, and grabbed for the top of the wall.
    Richardson heard the girl grunting as she tried to pull herself up onto the top of the wall. She’s not gonna make it, he thought.
    A moment later, she dropped. She was still holding on to the top of the wall, but just barely. She looked at him, the ligaments standing out in her neck, her expression a mixture of pain and abject fear.
    “I can’t,” she said.
    Richardson turned back to the street and saw Sylvia Carnes sprinting toward him.
    “Hurry up,” she yelled.
    “It’s okay,” Richardson said to the girl. “Pull yourself up. I’ll help you.”
    He