Page 97 of Viral Justice

The village, with its stone-walled houses—now that was a better bet. Where did it look the quietest?

No one was out and about. She’d have to start someplace logical and work her way through the buildings until she found them.

Ali abandoned her perch and went to the closest home. After a knock she went inside. She found nothing in the first room, a kitchen and main living area combo, but she could smell something rotting.

The whole family lay dead in a bedroom. She couldn’t see any obvious injuries, so it must have been the flu.

The next home was the same.

The third home had only two survivors in it, both of them very elderly women.

“What do you want?” one of the women asked.

“I’m looking for strange men with expensive guns.”

They shook their heads. “No, we haven’t seen anyone like that. Have you been in other houses?”

“Yes.”

“Is anyone alive?”

“No,” Ali managed to get out. “You are the first living people I’ve found so far.”

“Kill us,” one of the women said.

“What?”

“We have nothing. No children or grandchildren. No husbands. Kill us.”

Ali stared at them, horror filling her throat until she was choking on it. She couldn’t speak. She shook her head and backed out of the house, rushing to the next one and just standing outside the door trying to get air into her lungs again.

Jesus Christ, how bad would the situation have to be before she begged to die?

A few seconds later, she pushed herself to move and went into the house. This home was empty of people, living or dead.

She moved on.

The fighting in the tent area sounded less furious. The destruction of the Howitzer must have demoralized the group that had been using it.

She checked another three homes, finding only the dead, before screaming and single gunshots outside caught her attention. Instead of going outside to investigate, she stayed in the home she was in and peeked out a window pointed in the correct direction.

A group of armed men had rounded up some women, children and elderly people. The men and boys were separated from the group and were made to kneel on the stone street. One of the gunmen shot an old man at the end of the row of people.

All of the women began to scream, punch, and kick at their captors.

A silent snarl curled her lip and she had to make herself stay where she was and think through the desire to run out there and kill every man with a gun.

There were twenty or more armed men. Could she doanythingthat would help the situation without making her own worse? She had a duty to protect herself and her men, to protect those civilians she’d already accepted responsibility for.

The front door of the house she was in slammed open.

The choice to fight these disgusting creeps might be taken from her. She was out of the direct line of sight from the door, but once the person who kicked the door in moved four or five feet farther in, they’d see her across the room near the window.

Her position wasn’t all that good, so she turned to face the incomer and crouched with her rifle butt settled in the cradle of her shoulder, ready to fire.

Someone took a step, two, three—on the fourth one, the gunman came into view, but he didn’t seem to see her for the first couple of seconds.

He was looking at head height and wasn’t expecting a small person to be crouched on the floor, she supposed.

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