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Chapter 104


We should have learned our lesson from what happened at the bridal boutique. We should never have risked our lives for a luxury item. We should never have split up inside that store. We should never have assumed we’d all make it out again in one piece.

I felt good about going to that store with Gretchen, like I was finally giving back in a way, doing something nice for someone as sweet as her. But that good feeling went away the moment Martin – what used to be Martin, anyway – lumbered into the chapel and ruined her wedding. Was a wedding dress worth losing a member of our group? No. No way.

I know Gretchen still feels guilty about what happened to Martin, but it wasn’t her fault. The whole group is to blame. We were careless. We got sloppy. We should have listened to Selena when she said it was a stupid idea. We should have learned. I should have learned.

We lost another member of our group today. And this time, it’s all my fault…



Friday, June 14, 2013
Week Sixty

The deaths of Martin and Alistair had rattled the group. Just when they were starting to feel relatively safe inside the castle, the losses served as a stark reminder that they were still vulnerable.

The European contingent was especially shaken. They had always assumed that they, like Dr. Kwak In-Su and the American survivors, were all immune to the Osiris Virus, but Martin’s demise had cast doubts over this theory. “Martin was an exception, though,” Selena tried to assure them in her matter-of-fact way. “He was in a remote, isolated area when the plague hit. He was never exposed to the airborne virus. His friends got it through bites, and the only reason he survived is because he amputated his own arm and stopped the spread. Had he been in a populated area, like the rest of us, he would have succumbed to the illness, same as everyone else did. We have nothing to worry about. Nothing more than the usual, anyway.”

But they did worry. In fact, besides Selena and AJ, who was justifiably confident in his own ability to survive a bite, the only one unaffected by the fear that had consumed the rest of the group was Howie. As a hemophiliac who risked grievous injury just by existing, he was used to feeling vulnerable. This was nothing new. He’d learned to overcome his fear.

He could not say the same for Brian and Gretchen, who did more worrying than anyone these days. Gretchen, approximately eight months pregnant now, worried for the life of her unborn child. Brian, who had already lost one wife and two children, worried for them both. Howie could empathize with this fear. He remembered the anxiety he’d felt when Bree was in labor with Bartholomew, and that had been in a hospital with trained medical professionals and modern technology. Now that Martin was gone, Gretchen had only Selena. If something went wrong during the delivery, there would be no saving her. And Howie, who also knew what it was like to lose a wife and child, could only imagine what would become of Brian then. He had been a broken man before, but this would shatter him.

They needed help – help from Heaven above, Howie thought – but for now, they would settle for supplies. “We need start getting a delivery room ready,” stated Selena that morning, as the group gathered for breakfast. “From what we’ve guessed, Gretchen’s about eight months along, but that’s only an estimate, and she could always go early. Right now we have only basic medical supplies. We need more specialized instruments, monitoring equipment, IVs…”

“Pain meds?” Gretchen put in hopefully.

Selena shot her a grim smile.

“Not to mention formula, nappies, blankets, and clothing for the baby,” added Abby.

“Right,” Selena agreed. “So what I’m saying is, some of us need to go on a massive supply run to the nearest hospital or clinic or whatever’s closest.”

“I’d say Conquest Hospital’s our best bet,” Abby suggested. “It’s perhaps ten or fifteen kilometers south of here, near the coast.”

Selena nodded slowly, a faraway look on her face. “We’ll take the truck; we can stow the supplies in the back. I have the best idea what to look for, so I’ll be going, of course. Who’ll be joining me?”

“I’ll go.”

Howie was surprised to hear AJ’s raspy voice volunteer, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been. Back on the base, AJ had always been up for an adventure, but his injury had changed everything. His bad leg had healed as much as it ever would, but he still walked with a limp and would probably never run again.

Selena was quick to shake her head. “No. Sorry, but you’ll only slow us down.”

“Or I’ll save our asses,” AJ countered. “I’m a damn good shot, and you know it.”

“Yeah, but we’re not shooting them anymore. Not out there, not unless we’re surrounded. Otherwise, it’s all hand-to-hand combat, so we don’t attract them with the noise. And you’ll be crap at close combat on that leg.”

AJ arched his eyebrows. “Yeah? Try me. I’m stronger than you think. And in case you haven’t noticed, the zombies are getting weaker.”

It was true. They’d thought it was just the cold slowing the undead down during the winter, but the ghouls had gotten even slower since spring. The warm weather seemed to have accelerated their already advanced stages of decomposition, to the point that it was almost impossible to tell male zombies apart from females anymore, unless their clothing was still intact. Most of them had been reduced to walking skeletons, more bone than flesh. Their snapping jaws still made them a threat, but certainly, they were more manageable now.

Selena scrutinized AJ carefully for a few seconds and finally nodded. “Fine. Just don’t go getting yourself killed.”

“Scout’s honor,” he said sarcastically, holding up three fingers. The gesture seemed lost on Selena, who just rolled her eyes.

“Right, now that that’s settled… who else is coming along to help me cover the cripple?” She smiled at AJ, who made a face back at her. The two of them had been spending an awful lot of time together these last few months, Howie had observed. Insulting each other seemed to be their favorite form of flirting.

“I will,” said Brian, but Selena shot him down too.

“No. You have a wife and baby on the way; you’d better stay here. Ashton will come with us, won’t you, Ash?”

“’Course,” agreed Ashton, whose physical strength was always an asset on supply runs. Howie couldn’t help but envy Ashton. No one would ever think to ask him, Howie, to accompany them on a run. And after what had happened in the bowling alley back on the base, Howie couldn’t blame them. He knew he was a liability. Still, he wasn’t used to feeling so helpless. His intelligence and strong business sense had served him well in the old world, but here, such traits were no longer in demand. Brains meant more to the zombies than the living, who only seemed to care about brawn. Howie just wanted to feel useful again.

Half-listening to the others debate over who would go and who should stay to defend the castle, Howie thought about how the others had risked their lives to save his, time and time again. Brian had gone into the medical center, the most zombie-infested place on the base, to bring back supplies. AJ had driven Howie back to the chapel the day his car windshield had imploded in an attack, embedding glass in his face. Gretchen, along with the others, had given blood when he was dying of hypovolemic shock. He owed it to them to be the brave one for once, to sacrifice his own safety to keep them out of danger.

“I want to go,” he spoke up suddenly, infusing his voice with a confidence he didn’t feel.

Heads turned as everyone in the kitchen stared at him incredulously. Howie was not at all surprised when Selena, again, said, “No.”

“I’m serious,” he insisted. “You need me. Maybe I’m not the strongest or the best shot, but I’ll know what kind of things to look for in that hospital.”

Selena gave him a haughty, skeptical look. “Is that so? Because you know so much about childbirth?”

“I’m not claiming to be an expert, but what I do know didn’t come from a book. It came from experience. Tell me, have any of you had a baby before?” he asked, looking from Selena to Ashton to AJ. “Have you even been inside a delivery room? Well, I have. I was there when my son was born. I was there when they did an episiotomy on my wife to get him out.” Gretchen blanched at that, and even Selena’s face seemed a shade paler. “I’m willing to bet I’ve spent more time in hospitals than any of you,” added Howie, glancing around the room at all of them. “I know a thing or two about the kind of equipment and supplies we’ll need. I know I can be useful, if you’ll just give me the chance to prove it.”

Selena looked to AJ, who nodded. “Fine,” she snapped. “But if either of you get hurt or fall behind, don’t think we’ll be going back to save your sorry asses. Our objective is to bring back supplies for Gretchen. Understood?”

Howie met her steely gaze and gave a single nod of agreement. “Understood.”

***

Conquest Hospital was a sprawling building, only several stories high, but spread out wide, with a maze of roads, roundabouts, and parking lots they had to navigate in order to reach the entrance. Thankfully, there were a number of well-marked signs around the campus to point them in the right direction, though trying to read these while a horde of the undead closed in on their truck wasn’t the easiest feat. “There’s so many of them,” said Howie, starting to regret his decision to come. He hadn’t seen this many zombies in one place since the early days on the base.

“Yeah, well, this is where they all died and turned. Makes sense, doesn’t it?” said Selena, slowing down in front of another roundabout. “Which way?”

“Emergency Maternity,” Howie noted on a sign that was just visible through the overgrown shrubbery. “Turn right.”

Selena cranked the steering wheel to the right, ignoring the arrow directing her to go left around the roundabout. Howie would have done the same; all of the road signs in England seemed backwards to him, anyway. It still felt strange to be sitting, as the front seat passenger, on what would have been the driver’s side in America. He kept stretching his foot out to tap an imaginary brake, as Selena drove like a maniac down the wrong side of the road, running over zombies without even the slightest hesitation. It must have been a bumpy ride for AJ and Ashton, who were sitting in the back. Howie kept checking over his shoulder to make sure neither of them had bounced out of the truck bed yet, but they were both still there, weapons raised, ready to pick off any zombies who got too close.

The truck trundled down a steep, winding drive that led them around the right side of the building, where they saw the emergency entrance. There was only a small cluster of zombies meandering around outside it, but another glance out the rear window revealed a whole herd staggering down the drive in pursuit of them. Getting into the building was definitely going to be easier than getting out again.

AJ rapped his knuckles against the rear window. “Let’s get moving!” he shouted.

“Bloody hell,” Selena swore, throwing the truck into park and shoving open her door. “You coming or not?” she called to Howie, as she jumped down.

Howie heaved a sigh and tried to steel himself before climbing out of his side. As soon as his feet touched the ground, AJ and Ashton appeared in front of him. “We’ll have to barricade the doors before our followers find a way in after us,” Ashton was saying.

“First we gotta get past these guys,” said AJ, limping towards the zombies outside the entrance with his Winchester pointed in front of him. He’d fixed a bayonet to the end of the rifle, and he seemed to relish in stabbing it through zombie eye sockets. Meanwhile, Ashton was armed with a medieval mace he’d found in the castle, perfect for bashing in zombie skulls. Selena had holstered her gun in favor of her machete, while Howie wielded a sword – light, yet sharp, capable of slicing through rotting flesh and bare bones. He just hoped he wouldn’t cut himself in the process. He held back as the others took the offensive, clearing a path through the pile of corpses they left in their wake.

Selena, dodging the slow, lumbering zombies, reached the doors first and yanked one side open. “Get in, get in!” she shouted, beckoning furiously to the others. Ashton went in after her, holding his mace in front of him. AJ followed, limping painfully, while Howie brought up the rear.

“You alright, AJ?” he asked as he hurried inside, pulling the door closed behind him.

“I’m fine,” said AJ gruffly. “Let’s you and me get these doors secured while they start clearing the place.”

Howie looked past AJ and saw Selena and Ashton already killing zombies. The place was crawling with them. He swallowed his rising panic. “What if we have to get out quickly?”

“We won’t have to if we can clear this ward and secure it. Now c’mon, help me.” AJ was standing with his back pressed against the doors. Howie could hear the skeletal hands scraping on the other side. “Go get that IV pole,” AJ directed, pointing. “Maybe we can shove it through the door handles.”

Howie ran for the pole, keeping one eye on the carnage happening down the hallway. He wheeled it back to the doors. “It’s not going to fit,” he told AJ. “The top’s too wide.”

“Looks like it unscrews,” AJ observed, pointing to a black knob on the side of the pole, which allowed its height to be adjusted. Howie feverishly twisted the knob until it was loose enough to spin freely in his hand; then he pulled the top of the stand clear out of the hollow bottom pole. “There you go. Now put it through.”

Howie lifted the pole and turned it sideways, slipping it through the double door handles until the wheeled bottom caught. “I don’t know how well it’ll hold,” he told AJ worriedly. “Most of it’s hollow; the metal could bend.”

“They’re not that strong. They’re walking skeletons, remember? They’ll probably break their own bones before they break that pole. But just to be safe, let’s overturn one of those gurneys in front of the doors. Those suckers are heavy.”

Howie brought over one of the gurneys he was pointing to, and together, they tipped it in front of the doors.

“There we go,” said AJ, brushing his hands. “That should hold ‘em for awhile. C’mon, let’s go help Selena and Ashton.”

That was what Howie had been afraid of, but he had no choice but to follow AJ further into the maternity ward, where Ashton and Selena were bludgeoning and decapitating zombies left and right. “You two! Secure those doors!” shouted Selena, gesturing to a pair of double doors at the end of the hallway. While she and Ashton kept undead occupied, Howie and AJ snuck past them and used more IV stands to reinforce both the double doors and a single door leading into the stairwell.

With the ward sealed off and the hallway clear, they were finally free to explore. “There’s the delivery room,” said Howie, pointing to a pair of doors beneath a sign marked Delivery Suite. “Most of the equipment we need will be in there.”

Selena nodded. “Right. You and Ashton go there. Gather as much as you can carry. AJ and I will see if we can’t find the pharmacy. I believe you know a bit about pharmaceuticals too, now, don’t you?” she teased AJ, who merely smirked. “It’s about… half past noon, by my watch. What time have you got, Howie?”

Howie checked his medical alert watch. “Same.”

“We’ll meet back here in one hour.” Selena glanced back at the entrance. “Hopefully the horde outside will have wandered off by then. Don’t be late, or you may be left behind. Got it?”

“Got it,” everyone agreed, though Howie squirmed at the thought of being left behind. He didn’t doubt that Selena meant what she’d said.

He wasn’t comfortable splitting up, either, but he felt reasonably safe with Ashton, especially after witnessing the way Ashton slammed his mace through the window on one of the delivery room doors, shattering the glass and gaining them access through the otherwise locked doors. “You know what you’re looking for?” Ashton asked Howie, as they entered the delivery suite.

“I’ve got some idea,” said Howie, wandering around. The delivery rooms in this hospital looked different than the one in his memory, the room in which Bree had given birth to their son. Along with the standard beds and chairs, they were furnished with pieces of equipment that seemed better suited to a gym than a hospital room: large exercise balls, foam floor mats, and lengths of knotted fabric, hanging rope-like from the ceilings. But when he started poking through the contents of cupboards, drawers, and carts, he found the sort of equipment he’d had in mind. While Ashton stood guard, he filled the empty backpacks they’d brought with everything from basic monitoring equipment – a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and thermometer – to scary-looking, stainless steel surgical instruments he stole from one of the carts. “We need to find the nursery,” he told Ashton. “That’s where we’ll find the baby supplies – diapers, formula, all that stuff.”

“Lead the way, mate,” said Ashton. It was nice to get a break from bossy Selena. Ashton stayed quietly in the background, keeping watch, while Howie searched for the nursery. He found it in the adjacent set of rooms, across from the stairwell. There was another security door blocking their access, but all it took was Ashton throwing his mace through the plate glass window for them to break in. “It’d be easier to just go through the window,” Ashton suggested. “Need a leg up?”

Eying the shards of glass sticking out of the window frame, Howie shook his head. “You first. I’d rather go through the door.”

Ashton shrugged. “Alright.” He boosted himself up and through the window, dropping neatly to the floor on the other side. Within seconds, he’d opened the nursery door to let Howie in.

At first glance, the nursery looked abandoned, but they quickly realized this wasn’t the case, when they heard the gurgling cries of a newborn. Howie’s head whipped to the side, his eyes focusing on a bassinet in the back of the room, where something was moving under a blue blanket. “Oh my God!” he cried. “Someone left their baby here?!” Without thinking, acting purely on paternal instinct, he rushed to the bassinet and whipped off the blanket before Ashton could stop him. What he saw underneath it made his heart skip a beat. “Oh, no…”

The infant was unclothed, except for its sodden diaper. Its skin was mottled and gray, the flesh beneath it so wasted that Howie could see bone in places where it had rotted away. Yet its eyes were open, cloudy and unfocused, and so was its mouth, the blackened, toothless gums flapping endlessly as it cried to be fed. Its tiny, skeletal hands were balled into fists that flailed randomly, lacking the coordination to even reach for Howie.

“Dear God…” Ashton had come up behind Howie, and he heard the horror in the other man’s voice. “What should we do with it?”

With a sinking feeling, Howie realized the only proper thing to do. “We have to take care of it.” But then he thought of his own son, lying still and lifeless in his bed, and he shook his head. “I don’t think I can do it. Will you?”

Ashton looked down at the mace in his hand. “Not with this. Doesn’t seem right to bash a baby’s brains in, even if it is one of them. Give me your sword.”

Howie handed it over, then turned around. He couldn’t bear to watch, but he heard the sound of the sword swishing cleanly through the infant’s soft skull, heard the cries suddenly cease, and that was bad enough.

Ashton came up alongside him, wiping off the blade with the blue blanket. He tossed the blanket aside and handed Howie the sword. “Let’s hurry up and get the hell out of here.”

Howie couldn’t agree more.

They tore through the nursery’s supply cabinets, stuffing their packs with diapers, wipes, bottles, powdered formula, blankets, hats, sleepers, anything they could find that would fit. “The sad thing is, this stuff will only last us a little while,” Howie told Ashton. “Babies grow so fast, and they go through diapers and formula even quicker.” He could still remember his shock at how much his credit card bills went up after Barty’s birth, though, of course, Bree had bought him more than just the bare necessities.

“It’s okay. We still have another month to stock up before the little tyke even gets here, right?”

“I hope so,” said Howie.

They headed back to the entrance, where they’d agreed to meet Selena and AJ. A quick glance at his watch told Howie they still had twenty minutes to spare, but a look out the front doors told him they wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. The horde of zombies that had followed their truck to the maternity wing had amassed outside. The truck was surrounded, and only the IV pole wedged through the door handles had stopped them from breaking in.

To Howie, it looked hopeless. “What are we going to do?”

Ashton chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. “We’ll have to try another exit. If they’re all fixated on these doors, maybe we can sneak out another way.”

“But how will we get back to the truck?”

“Maybe we won’t. Maybe we’ll find another vehicle.”

A sudden thought struck Howie. “Hey! Back at our base, Brian stole an ambulance from the medical center. He said it was just sitting there, keys still in the ignition. It could be the same way here!”

“That’s not a bad idea. I saw some ambulances parked outside the main entrance as we were driving by. Worth a try, anyway, wouldn’t you say?”

Howie didn’t want to be the one to try, but he did want to get out of the hospital, so he sucked up his courage and nodded. “Let’s give it a shot.”

“Brilliant.” Ashton started walking back the way they’d come.

“Wait, now?” Caught off-guard, Howie hurried after him. “But – what about AJ and Selena?”

Ashton shrugged. “You said we’ve got twenty minutes till they’re supposed to be back, right? Well, why wait? If we get hold of an ambulance now, we can use it to lure the zombies away from that exit, so Selena and AJ can get to the truck. Then we’ll have both. It’d be nice to have a back-up, in case the ambulance runs out of petrol or breaks down or something.”

Howie had to admit, it made sense. Always have a Plan B. The businessman in him appreciated this forethought. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“So let’s go.” Ashton led them to the stairwell they’d blocked off earlier, where there was a hospital directory and map. “We’re on Level 1,” said Ashton, pointing to a spot on the map. “We need to get to Level 3. That’s where the main entrance and the emergency department are, so that’s where the ambulances are as well.”

Howie nodded. “Sounds good.”

They both strapped on their bulging backpacks, readied their weapons, cleared the door leading into the stairwell, and started up the stairs. Ashton led the way, walking ahead of Howie. Their footsteps on the bare cement steps echoed through the stairwell, but Howie supposed this was a good thing: if there were any zombies on the stairs, their footsteps and moans would echo as well.

They made it up the first flight of stairs without incident, but as soon as Ashton set foot on the second floor landing, the stairwell door flew open with a bang that made Howie jump. He looked up in horror to see a stream of the walking dead squeezing through the doorway. “Keep going! We can outrun them!” Ashton shouted, starting up the next flight, but Howie’s first instinct had been to turn back. A few steps below the landing, he froze, realizing he and Ashton had been separated by the zombies. In the split second it took for Ashton to look back over his shoulder and realize the same thing, one of the zombies reached out and latched on to his backpack.

Howie could only watch helplessly as Ashton stumbled backwards, the force of the zombie’s pull on his heavy bag throwing him off balance. He missed a step and fell hard onto the landing, the mace slipping from his hand. The precious weapon rolled right underneath the railing and went crashing down to the bottom of the staircase. Howie raised his sword, but his feet were still frozen to the stairs, unwilling to take him into the fray. He hesitated, as Ashton thrashed around under the weight of the zombies had that fallen upon him, struggling to wriggle his arms out of the straps of his backpack and hold the zombies back at the same time. “A little help here, Howie?” he shouted, his voice several octaves higher than usual.

Howie forced himself to take one step, then another. When he was within reach, he swung his sword wildly, slicing through the neck of the nearest zombie. He had to jump to dodge the severed skull as it rolled down the stairs. Looking up hopefully, he saw that Ashton had managed to free his arms, but it was too late. As he raised the heavy backpack over his head, one of the zombies went for the jugular, its jaws clamping down on the side of Ashton’s neck. He let out a blood-curdling scream and dropped the backpack, which bounced down the stairs into Howie’s arms.

For just a moment, as Ashton turned his head to watch his only weapon fall away, and as Howie caught it and looked up, stunned, the two of them locked eyes, and time seemed to stand still. Howie couldn’t remember any rational thoughts that passed through his brain in that moment, only his fight or flight instinct screaming, “Run! RUN!” in his head. But he would never forget the desperate look in Ashton’s eyes or the way his mouth moved soundlessly, silently pleading for help as blood bubbled from his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Howie whispered, as he turned and ran. Not even the echo of his pounding footsteps as he bolted back down the stairs could drown out the sound of Ashton’s last scream, gurgling out of his throat as the undead tore into his flesh.

Howie would never forget that, either.

***

When AJ and Selena came back, they found Howie sitting alone on a bench in the hallway, holding the mace, his sword on the bench beside him and the pair of backpacks at his feet. He twisted the mace in his hands, its rough wooden handle scraping against his palms. The smallest splinter could make him bleed, but he wasn’t thinking about that just then.

He looked up when he heard their footsteps approaching and found AJ and Selena staring back at him. “Where’s Ashton?” Selena was the first to ask.

Howie shook his head, tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. “He didn’t make it.”

AJ blinked in disbelief, his mouth dropping open. Selena simply bowed her head.

Feeling he owed them some kind of explanation, Howie added, “We were trying to find another way out. We got back early and saw how many of them were out there, so we thought we’d go out the main entrance, try to steal one of the ambulances, and use it to distract them so you guys could get to the truck. But we got attacked in the stairwell. He was ahead of me, and we got separated. They surrounded him. There… there was nothing I could do.”

Liar! screamed his conscience. You could have done something. You could have tried to save him. You didn’t. You just turned tail and ran, like the coward you are. Like the coward you’ve always been.

Selena shrugged. “It’s every man for himself. He knew the risk he was taking when he agreed to come with us.” There was a forced sort of casualness to her tone, but Howie could tell by the way she turned away as she talked that she was more shaken by the loss of Ashton than she wanted to show them. Perhaps she had remembered that it was she who’d asked Ashton to come along.

It was AJ who changed the subject, redirecting their attention to a more pressing problem. “So… how are we gonna get out of here?”

They all looked toward the double doors, which were shaking with the force of the zombies beating relentlessly against them. The barricades they’d created were working for now, but there was no way they would all get past the growing horde in one piece.

“Your plan wasn’t such a bad idea,” said Selena, looking at Howie. “If one of us could get out through another door and create some kind of diversion, lead them away from this exit, the other two could escape.”

AJ and Howie exchanged glances. “Who’s going to create the diversion?”

Selena sighed. “I suppose I will. I’m certainly not entrusting that job to a hemophiliac or a bloke with a bum leg.”

Howie smiled, feeling a rising sense of relief, but AJ scowled. “You sure?” he asked Selena, clearly not as happy with her arrangement.

“Trust me, I’m the fastest. I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’ll try and get one of the ambulances, but if I can’t, I’m just going to run for it. As soon as you see them leave, you better be in that truck, coming to find me.”

They both nodded. “You can count on it,” said AJ. He reached out and pulled her into a rough, one-armed hug, but Selena was having none of that. She twisted away from him, shaking his hand from her shoulders.

“Cut it out. Don’t start that now,” she scolded him. “I said I’ll be fine, and I meant it. You can squeeze me all you want when we’re both safe and sound back in the castle.”

AJ raised his eyebrows. “You can count on it,” he said again, grinning.

Selena rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the smirky little smile on her lips. Howie knew then that there was definitely something going on between them.

But there was no time to wonder about that. As soon as Selena had gone, AJ sat down beside Howie and said, “So… what really happened with Ashton?”

Howie felt a flash of heat rising into his cheeks. “What do you mean?” he asked, hoping his guilty face didn’t betray him.

AJ gave him a look. “C’mon, man, I know you better than that. Something else happened. You’re sitting there with his backpack, holding his weapon. If he was surrounded by zombies, how’d you get his stuff?”

“He dropped it.” It wasn’t a lie, but as AJ’s dark eyes probed into his own, the rest of the truth came pouring out of Howie. “They knocked him to the ground; they were all over him. I should have tried to help him, but I froze. I got scared, and as soon as I could make my feet move again, I ran for it. I ran, while they ripped him to pieces.” He covered his face with his hands, the heels digging into his eye sockets, his fingers clawing at his hair. Behind the mask of his hands, his face burned with shame, the tears stinging like acid in his eyes.

Then he felt the warm weight of AJ’s hand on his shoulder. “C’mon, D… Don’t beat yourself up about it. You did what you had to do to survive. Either of us might have done the same thing.”

“No you wouldn’t have,” Howie mumbled into his hands. “You and Selena would have saved his life.”

AJ snorted. “You heard what Selena said. ‘Every man for himself.’ ‘If you get hurt or fall behind, don’t think I’m saving your sorry asses.’ For all we know, she could be hightailing it the hell out of here in an ambulance right now, while we serve as the distractions.”

Howie dropped his hands, looking at AJ in horror. “She wouldn’t really do that… would she?”

AJ shrugged. “She might, if I weren’t here.” Then he grinned. “She’s into me, man.”

Howie rolled his eyes. He was tired of everyone hooking up but him. Nick and Riley… Brian and Gretchen… Shaun and Liz… and now AJ and Selena. Even little Gabby had gotten awfully friendly with the other kid in the castle, Callum. They made him feel like even more of an outsider. He didn’t doubt that Selena would have left him, had it not been for AJ and the fact that they had most of the medical supplies sitting at their feet.

“Speak of the devil…” AJ said suddenly. “Look.”

He was pointing toward the doors. Howie looked out the narrow windows and saw the sea of skeletal hands and faces starting to recede. “Something’s drawing them away.”

“That’s our signal. C’mon, let’s get our shit together and get ready to move.”

They gathered the supplies and their weapons and snuck up to the doors. It took several more minutes for the last of the zombies to stagger away, but finally, their path to the truck looked clear. AJ gave the command: “Let’s bounce.” They removed the barricades blocking the doors and burst out of them. “You drive,” AJ called to Howie, as they tossed their bags into the back of the truck. “I’ll shoot.”

Howie nodded and ran around to the far side of the truck. He climbed into the driver’s seat, while AJ rode shotgun. After pulling a hasty U-turn, Howie followed the zombie horde up the drive, searching frantically for whatever they seemed to be following. He was expecting to see – or hear – an ambulance, its lights flashing, sirens wailing, anything to attract attention to itself and draw it away from the doors. But he noticed nothing, until AJ suddenly said, “There!”

Howie looked in the direction AJ was pointing and saw Selena on foot. She’d made it across the roundabout in front of the main entrance and was running up the road, past the parking lots, away from the hospital. The growing horde was hot on her heels, zombies streaming toward her from all directions.

“Pedal to the metal, Howie!” shouted AJ. “Hurry!”

Howie gunned the engine, and the truck lurched forward. Bodies bounced off the front fender, flying right and left, as the truck parted the undead sea. He took the roundabout on two wheels and raced toward Selena. She was almost surrounded now, and he could see her struggling. Even if she’d had the stamina to run forever, she had nowhere to go.

He crashed through the perimeter of zombies closing in on her and slammed on the brakes, stopping just long enough for her to scramble over the tailgate and into the back of the truck. Then he accelerated again, leaving the undead in a cloud of exhaust.

AJ had twisted around in his seat, opening the rear window to talk to Selena. “What happened with the ambulance?”

Selena shook her head, too winded to speak at first. “No good,” she panted. “None had keys inside.”

“Damn. Well, at least you got out of there in one piece. Our plan worked anyway. Good one, Howie.” AJ grinned in Howie’s direction, but it didn’t help. He knew AJ was only trying to make him feel better.

But nothing could make him feel better, not even Gretchen hugging him with gratitude when they got back to the castle, or Brian calling him a godsend. Because Howie knew the truth: he wasn’t a hero. He hadn’t done anything brave. Rather than sacrificing his own safety to save the others, he had sacrificed the strongest member of their group to save himself. And while they gathered to mourn the loss of Ashton and hear Selena’s side of the story, Howie sat on the outskirts of the circle and said nothing. He knew the truth, but he kept it to himself.

He wasn’t a hero. He was just as much of a coward as he’d always been.

***