Broken Lands (Benny Imura 6)

“Tell me that’s not New Alamo,” said Ledger.

82

GUTSY DID NOT BOTHER WITH the secret entrance. There was no time left for stealth.

Instead she ran into the corridor of cars that led to the front gate. She began screaming for help before she reached them.

After that it was a blur.

Guards yelling. The gate swinging open. People running. Sombra barking. Whistles blowing. Questions, questions, questions.

She sagged down and collapsed back against the fender of one of the crushed cars just inside the wall. Sombra stood shivering next to her, his eyes wild and mouth flecked with foam. Gutsy begged for the guards to fetch Karen, and suddenly the security officer was there.

“Gutsy,” she barked, “what is it, what’s wrong? Why were you outside the gates this late?”

Gutsy grabbed her wrists and pulled her close to speak in a fierce whisper. “The base . . . I found it.”

Karen’s eyes flew wide and she tried to pull away. “You don’t know what you’re—”

“It’s gone!” cried Gutsy.

“What?”

“They blew it up. I saw it. The whole thing is burning. All the people there . . . they’re all dead.”

The other guards exchanged confused looks.

“What’s she talking about?” demanded Buffy, and Gutsy remembered that she had been one of the two guards on duty the night the Rat Catchers brought Mama home the first time. Which meant that she had let them into town. It meant that she was one of them.

Even with everything that was going on, Gutsy wanted to punch her.

She didn’t, and instead told Karen everything about what she?

??d seen out in the desert. The huge swarms of shamblers and the packs of murderous ravagers.

“They’re coming here,” said Gutsy.

“Here . . . ?” murmured Karen, her face going dead pale. “How much time do we have?”

“Not enough,” said Gutsy.

Above her, in the guard towers, the sentries began screaming their warnings.

PART SIXTEEN

NEW ALAMO, TEXAS

LATE AUGUST

REMEMBER THE ALAMO

We must not permit our respect for

the dead or our sympathy for the living

to lead us into an act of injustice

to the balance of the living.