Free Chrysalis Young by John Zanetti Page A

trapezoid pattern which they had also found to be effective. Maybe the aliens didn’t like geometry which Amanda could certainly sympathise with.
    It wasn’t enough.
    “We need new thinking,” Chrysalis said. The sheer mass of zombies had pushed them back to the shattered windows of the foyer.
    “Tell me about it,” Amanda said. She was throwing fireballs, dropping mini bombs, and swinging the sword so fast it was only a blur and she still found herself stepping backwards over the shattered glass on the floor and into the foyer. She pulled the clones back into herself because they could only run on automatic out in big open spaces. In the confined space inside the Horsey Centre, she could only use them if she directed their moves and she plain just couldn’t think fast enough. Their situation was now so bad that she had to give up trying to avoid getting the ‘bewildered’ caught in the crossfire. They no longer had that luxury. She killed every living thing around Chrysalis as fast she was possibly able to.
    It still wasn’t enough.
    Now they were backed up to the carpeted stairs going up to the higher levels in the auditorium.
    “What’s at the top of the stairs?” Amanda yelled.
    “Don’t shout at me!” Chrysalis said. She sounded rattled.
    “Please check with the minder. Where do the stairs go?”
    “To the roof,” Chrysalis said.
    “Okay. Let’s go there,” Amanda said.
    “Why?”
    “Only so many of them can get up the stairs at a time. Maybe we can hold them off,” Amanda said, although she had already decided that the two of them were toast but it paid not to think about that. “We should get to the roof quickly because this may not be the only stairway.”
    They backed up the stairs, holding off the zombies by clogging the stairway with the ‘bewildered’ and lots of flaming bodies.
    At one of the landings to the higher levels of the auditorium, Amanda couldn’t resist checking on her family and poked her head through the swing doors into the auditorium.
    The auditorium was still full of the ‘bewildered’ but she couldn’t see her Dad, Joanna or Beatrice.
    “We’ve got to go!” Chrysalis said. But it was too late. The stairway further up had become a seething mass of zombies. It didn’t matter to Amanda. She needed to find her family. She rushed into the auditorium. They were nowhere to be seen. Instead, clambering over the top of the ‘bewildered,’ and crushing many of them beneath them, was a solid stream of zombies flooding in from the lower level connecting corridors on both sides of the auditorium. They were all over the stage and in the wings.
    “I have to find my family,” Amanda said.
    Chrysalis checked with the minder. “They’re in those backrooms near the loading dock. The zombies are chasing them.”
    “Why are they attacking my family?” Amanda was already now down on the stage, carving a path through the zombies into the wings and to the dressing rooms. Beyond them was the maze of offices, workshop spaces and the loading dock. “I don’t get it. You said they couldn’t turn my family.”
    “They’re not trying to… I think they’re trying to kill them.”
    This galvanised Amanda to even greater efforts, swinging the sword and hurling fireballs in a total frenzy until, all on her own, she had cleared a path into the rest of the complex. “We’ve got to get to them!”
    Chrysalis joined Amanda in the first of the workshop spaces, leaving a trail of ‘bewildered’ behind her. “It’s a trap. The aliens expected me to tell you. They’re learning new tricks.”
    “I have to tell you,” Amanda said, “that it’s going to work because, obviously…”
    “It’s still a trap.”
    Amanda didn’t even bother to reply and focused on getting through the workshops to the loading dock as quickly as possible. Mentally shrugging, Chrysalis joined her.
    The bodies piled up. The corridors and open spaces became clogged with the ‘bewildered.’ Amanda and