Page 155 of Afflicted

“Whatever happens, stay behind me, OK?”

“Silas? What-”

I press a kiss to her mouth. “I love you, alright? I need you to know that.”

Her fingers curl around my shirt, her hands starting to tremble. “Silas, what? What’s happening?”

Screeching and screaming starts to sound below us. Juliet’s eyes don’t leave mine as realization washes over her. She simply shakes her head, biting her lower lip as she nods.

“They’re here, angel.” I could hear them coming. The National Guard blew open that fucking perimeter and sent them in, without even thinking. Without even knowing. And now they have no way to stop them.

I can hear them bashing against the exterior of the building below us, hundreds of heavy footsteps and their shrieking getting louder and louder.

“Come on.” I grab Juliet’s hand and head for the door. One solid kick, and the wood splinters, the door flying outwards. “We need to get out of here.”

“Where do we go?” Her voice is tight with fear.

“If we get to the roof we can avoid them, head for another building, barricade ourselves up there.” I pull her down the corridor behind me, the rhythmic battering from downstairs becoming louder and louder. “Stairs, stairs, fucking stairs, where are they?”

“Silas!” Juliet jerks me to a stop and points at a blue door at the end of the corridor. We sprint for it as the banging downstairs stops, and the shrieking of the Afflicted fills the building. They’ve made it inside.

I push Juliet up ahead of me, and she takes the stairs two at a time, rounding each curve of the stairwell until it ends in a solid black door. She steps aside to let me shoulder it open, and it gives way with a loud groan.

Out on the roof, the last of the evening light is fading. Juliet is panting beside me as I close the door, looking around on the roof for something to barricade it with. But there’s nothing, the rooftop is bare. But the roofs on either side of us are low, and within jumping distance.

“Let’s go.” I snatch up her hand and run for the edge of the building. Before we reach the edge, I scoop her up in my arms, and she yelps as my feet leave the ground and I jump across the distance between the buildings. As we land on the other side, the door on the rooftop we just left bursts open, and Afflicted flood out into the open. Juliet’s sharp intake of breath covers a scream, and her arms wrap around my neck.

“We’re alright, angel.” I race for the next rooftop, underestimating just how far this expanse is. We make it, but I stumble at the other end, losing my footing and crashing to my knees.

“Are you OK?” Juliet cries.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” I look over my shoulder, at the Afflicted that are pouring over the edge of the building. They’re driven purely by instinct, scenting us on the breeze and trying to get to us.

I get to my feet at the very moment that the door of the rooftop we now find ourselves on flies open, and three Afflicted stumble out, hands extended as they shriek and scream, looking for us.

Juliet claps a hand over her mouth, trying not to scream, but it makes no difference. They can smell us. I put Juliet on her feet and shove her behind me. She holds on to my shoulders, breathing rapidly.

“Oh my god,” she cries, unable to suppress her scream anymore as the Afflicted begin to barrel towards us.

The first one is small and lithe, and looks as though it could snap in half. It does, in fact, when my boot lands in its middle. It folds in half like a broken clothesline, and lies on the ground shrieking, bloody fingers scraping at the ground. The next two are decidedly bigger, and have the hollow cheeks and bared teeth of very hungry predators.

The first one gets close enough that I can grab onto its arm and pull. It wails in pain as the arm detaches from its body, the sick stench of rotting flesh rising through the air. It ambles sideways, disoriented by the pain.

The third one is stronger than the first two. It wrenches me away from Juliet, who screams my name as I grapple it around the waist and slam it to the ground. Its dead, black eyes don’t see me, but its nostrils flare violently as its fangs snap at my arms.

I curl a hand around its neck and slam its head repeatedly into the ground. Bones crunch, blood starts to coat the ground, and finally there’s just the wet slap of brain matter on concrete. It goes still under me just as Juliet screams again.

The one-armed feeder is making a beeline for her, and I rush at it in a low crouch. I keep running until we reach the edge of the building, and fling it down the several stories to the street beneath us.

The street teeming with Afflicted.

There’s hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.

Juliet comes to my side, and gazes down at them.

“I guess this is it then, huh?” She tilts her head to look up at me. “There are too many of them.”

“We’re going to get out of this, OK?”

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