Fire and Ash (Benny Imura 4)

“Off!” cried Joe, and the hulking monster froze. Red blood dripped from its spikes. The zom still had blood in its veins and tissues, proof that it had turned only minutes ago.

As Joe came running up and shone his light on the zom, Benny realized that he knew this man.

Sergeant Peruzzi.

Dead now, torn to pieces.

Benny heard Nix make a small, sad sound.

He’d been rude and threatening to Nix, but he didn’t deserve this.

No one did.

Benny glanced at Joe and expected to see the hard, dismissive face of a killer, but there was sadness in the big man’s eyes.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Lilah picked up Benny’s sword and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said. “I—”

But the Lost Girl got up in his face. “Chong is waiting for me. Don’t slow us down again.”

There wasn’t the slightest trace of compromise or mercy in her face.

All Benny could do was nod.

They turned and ran.

They passed two side corridors, but both were empty. Joe quickly explained that one led to the maintenance hangar and the other went to the generator room.

They went up a flight of stairs and along a corridor that was better lighted. There were two sets of heavy doors set fifty yards apart, and at each one they found blood and shell casings.

“Someone’s making a fight of this,” observed Joe. “Using doors and corridor bends as opposition points.”

There were no bodies, though. Nix pointed this out.

“Does that mean that they’re already inside?” she asked.

“With the mutagen, reanimation is very fast,” said McReady. “More of a transition from one state to another instead of death and a return to life. Anyone who died here could have been up in seconds.”

“Is anyone left?” asked Nix.

A new rattle of gunfire answered that question. It came from deeper inside the complex, along the path they were following. McReady and Joe listened, each of them judging distance. Their eyes snapped wide at the same time.

“God,” said Joe.

“The infirmary,” said McReady.

Everyone broke into a dead run as the gunfire continued, interspersed with moans and screams. To Benny every hallway and staircase looked the same, and he had the irrational feeling that they were running in circles.

Then one corridor ended with an air lock similar to the one they’d destroyed in the badlands. The door was ajar, held open by a slumped figure with a bullet hole in its forehead. A zom, Benny saw. There was red powder on its hair and face and black muck smeared on its mouth.

Beyond the air lock was a small chamber and then a second air lock, also blocked by the legs of a dead woman, whose head hung on an absurdly crooked neck. The woman was not one of the zoms from outside, nor was she was a reaper. She wore a soiled white lab coat over a military uniform.

“God—that’s Karen Lansky,” cried McReady. “She’s a nurse here.”

The sounds of battle were much closer now, but the intensity was less.