The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(192)

Wayne leapt to his feet and took the stairs two at a time.

“Here they are,” someone said. Wayne heard keys jingling, and then he was in the classroom. He closed the door behind him.

Sue held the small black boy to her chest. He pressed his face to her neck, weeping. Some of the kids were standing, tears in their eyes. Others still sat amid their sheets and pillows, stuffed animals held to their chests. Patty sat at the back of the class, just out of the glow cast by Sue’s lantern. She held two children close to her.

“What’s happening?” Barely holding it together. “Who’s shooting?”

“Some guys are on the roof picking them—”

“No. Someone in the warehouse fired a gun.”

“Seth. Someone—”

“Seth shot somebody?”

“No. Somebody shot Seth. We have to—”

“Oh, God. Is he—”

“Are you ready? Wayne said.

“Now?” Sue asked, looking around, jittery. “Wait, where’s Morgan?”

“Bathroom,” Patty said.

“Jesus.” Sue bit her lip and stood. “Kids, get up, we’re going.”

“Not you, hearts,” Patty said to the kids in the back, and closed her eyes.

Leticia, Greg, and Shawn gathered by Wayne’s side. Sue looked around. “Where’s Sarah? Sarah?”

“She’s staying with me,” Patty said, pulling one of the shadows closer, her voice slurred.

Wayne said, “We can come back. You can fit. We all can fit. We can—”

“Goddamn it.” Sue made fists at Patty and screamed, “You idiot!”

“You’re going on foot?” Patty said.

“The Jeep is just four blocks away,” Wayne answered. “We can—”

“You told Seth that you left it behind,” Patty said. “You’re going to get them killed.”

“Do you have your gun?” Wayne asked, staring at Patty’s shadowed form.

“I have three.”

“Okay. Let’s move.” More gunshots. Shouting from downstairs. The drone of the gathering dead. The kids wailed. They closed Patty in the back room and stopped in the hall to the stairs.

Wayne looked at Sue and whispered, “I didn’t know you wanted that one.”

“He won’t let go of me,” she sighed. “I don’t know where…he couldn’t tell me where his shoes were, I just have to f*cking carry him.”

“We can make it.” Wayne said, fighting back the urge to yell and curse. “We just need to be fast. Just—wait…”

“What is it?” Sue asked.

“I think I heard the motor pool loading door rolling up.”

“Damn it. They’re gonna get in.”

An eruption of gunfire. Sue switched the small boy—Devon, Wayne remembered—to her left arm and pulled her gun. She nodded.

Wayne pulled Leticia, the smallest of the three standing around them, onto his right hip. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Now hold on tight, okay?”

“Don’t let them get me.”

“Okay,” Wayne said, sucking in a deep breath. “Sue, behind me. You cover our right. I have the left. Get them between us.”

Sue nudged the two crying boys between them. Wayne winced. There were seven or eight in all, but damn it, they were so small.

“Hold onto my belt,” he told Shawn. “Now.” He looked at Sue. “Just like we planned. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He opened the door and led them out. The vast expanse of the warehouse was lost to darkness. Their flashlight beams seemed to die on black air.

A row of offices separated one warehouse from the other. The dead may have been packed shoulder to shoulder in the motor pool, but there were none to be seen on this side of the facility.

They took the stairs slowly. Somewhere, voices raised in anger. More popping gunshots from outside. Heavy footsteps on the roof.

At the bottom of the stairs, Wayne stopped. The kid’s head bumped into his back. Feet shuffled somewhere nearby. Ian stepped from the darkness and sank his teeth into the soft flesh of Leticia’s shoulder. She screamed.

Wayne’s gun thundered. Ian dropped. Sue and the kids screamed, retreating, falling over one another. She opened fire, shooting at nothing. Leticia’s hot blood doused Wayne’s hand. Her grip on his neck tightened. She screamed and screamed, and then there were more of them shambling through the darkness toward them.

Wayne screamed, “Go back!” and trailed Sue and the kids to the top of the stairs. “I’ll take care of these. I’ll get the Jeep. Wait in here.” He pried the screaming and wounded child from his neck and passed her to Sue.

“Take care of her,” he said, and with the click of the door shutting, was gone. At the bottom of the stairs, two more dead things bumped into one another. Trace and Mark, killed in the shootout over the keys. He took them down and moved toward the loading door, his flashlight beam passing over Seth’s body. In the direction of the motor pool, someone yelled. An engine revved.

There would only be a few of them milling around outside—most of them would have flocked toward the motor pool loading door, some forty feet to his right. He could get through with ease. Probably.