Free The Dead Boy by Craig Saunders Page A

hard. He was supposed to be the one dealing with this.
If he was frightened...
                'Is
that gunfire? Like real guns?'
                'I
think so,' said the policeman. He paused. 'Yes. It is.'  Certainty enough in
his voice for Francis to believe that all of this wasn't some crazy
hallucination, or a madness inside her. It was real.
                The
shots were no longer sporadic, shy sounds, but sustained - powerful, filling the
night - a wall of noise louder than the fire and the screams both.
                'What
the fuck is going on?'
                'Don't
know. Army? A terror attack. Not an accident?'
                The
intensity lessened. Back to sporadic bursts, then all the way down to single
shots. Finishing up, she thought. They'd killed everyone there was to
kill and were moving closer. Making sure.
                'What
should we do?'
                The
policeman was silent for a moment.
                'They're
not here to help,' he said.
                'I
get that. But what should we do?'
                'Stay
right here?'
                A
few more shots rang out, then, nothing.
                'You're
asking me?'
                'Shit,'
he said. 'I don't know any better than you. What about the supermarket?'
                Francis
shook her head.
                'I
tried to tell you - everyone's mental back there. That's where I came from.'
                'Mental?'
                She
nodded. 'Hurting themselves and each other. Maybe it is some kind of terrorist
thing. A virus. Something like that?'
                'But
is it better than guns?'
                She
wasn't sure, but she didn't say it. The policeman was unsure enough for the
both of them.
                'Hold
on,' she said.
                'I'm
not going anywhere,' he replied, but to her back, because she was already
heading through the copse of trees to take a look at the supermarket.
     
    *
     
    Francis
crouched in the cover of the darkness between the saplings and low branches. Ahead,
the supermarket was engulfed by fire.
                Clean
up on aisle five , she thought. Then wondered if maybe she was going crazy
after all. In the car park, men who moved like soldiers raised their weapons. Small
bursts of fire spat here and there, and whatever they hit fell down.
                Not whatever .
                Whoever.
                Bullets
hit the crazies, the crazies lay still.
                Maybe
they were thinking the same as her, just doing their cleaning with bullets
instead of a mop and bucket.
                This
isn't just serious, she thought. I'm going to die, and if I don't die
from whatever it is making people nuts, those bastards are going to kill me.
                If
it came to it, she'd look out for herself first, everybody else second, but she
wasn't going to run and leave the policeman.
                Where
the hell could she run to ?
                The
soldiers wore protective gear, like body armour, but their clothing was
entirely black. They wore masks.       
                What
kind of soldiers wore masks?
                Ones
exposed to chemicals and poisons. Like me.
                Whatever
was in the air, or the smoke, or wherever - she and the policeman had breathed
it in, too.
                She
crawled away from the slaughter with bile burning the back of her throat. But
if she puked, they might hear. If they heard...
                Sick
rose, but she swallowed in down. That burned, too.
                All
the way back she hunched low, expecting a bullet but finding only the shadows
and the damp ground beneath. A little rain, but not enough to for the
fire...nothing would be