“Jesus... what did you do?”
“I stabbed him in the back of the knee, with a pen.”
“I think I underestimated your grit, kid.”
Anna didn’t grin. Instead her red eyes flared. “Well, don’t. Not ever again.”
Jack shuddered at the sight of his daughter literally turning before him, then gritted his teeth. “Okay. Let’s get this done.”
“What’s the plan?” Joe asked.
“I’m going up to the Press Box. Alone.”
* * *
Anna wasn’t thinking straight. Her mind was clouded, muddled. Her mouth was on fire. She was so thirsty and so hungry. So damned hungry!
As she watched her father leave the dugout and begin crossing the field, it suddenly occurred to her—too late—that there was a side stairway, through the dugout, up to the Press Box. It was how she had reached the field and ambushed the infected.
“Daddy, wait!” she yelled.
But too late. The first explosion rocked the stadium.
* * *
The weapon was no bigger than a machine gun. In fact, it kind of looked like an AK-47. In reality, it was a grenade launcher, and Cole had removed it from his bag of tricks.
He had already shot out the Press Room windows and was now perched there, with the grenade launcher on his shoulder, when he sighted one of the Carter boys exiting the dugout. He didn’t care which one.
He took careful aim and pulled the trigger.
The explosion was deafening. Beautifully deafening. He watched the Carter boy fly off his feet, hurled back in a rain of grass and dirty and zombie parts.
Now there was the little girl running, the girl who would soon be a crazy.
Cole grinned and pulled the trigger.
* * *
“Daddy!” screamed Anna.
The explosion had knocked all of them off their feet. Worst off was Jack, who had been blown back a dozen or so feet. Anna, perhaps due to her enhanced strength and speed, was already on her feet and moving.
She didn’t see the third one land just twenty feet to her right, but heard it. Then she saw her Uncle Joe running after her. He was closing in on Anna. She would think later that maybe he knew he only had a few seconds to stop her... to live. Anna halted momentarily, terrified by her father’s inert form, when Joe leaped on top of her from behind, knocking her to the ground.
He turned her face away and covered her protectively with his body. The look of fierce love in his eyes told her one last time how he felt about her... his beloved niece.
Chapter Twenty-five
Carla rolled Jack over.
“Jack!” she shouted.
At first, he didn’t respond, and when he saw her in a daze, he couldn’t respond. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear anything as his eardrums were still vibrating from the grenade’s explosion. She was desperately trying to get him up. He was disoriented.
“Anna...” Jack couldn’t hear his own words, but Carla pointed. His eyes followed. Jared was there, helping his hysterical daughter to stand up. He was trying to drag her back to the dugout. They were both crying.
Carla didn’t give him any more time to look. He hadn’t yet recognized his brother’s body, nobody would have.
Jack forced himself to stand up. Carla threw his arm around her shoulder and hurriedly carried him back to cover.
* * *
During all the turmoil, nobody noticed Brice slipping away. Fully armed, he made his way up the aisle stairs, crouching low, concentrating on being invisible. In the hallway, he found the main stairs to the next level up... to where the asshole was hiding. Anger fueled him, and Brice took out his wrath on the mindless Zombies foolish enough to get in his way.
The constant song blasting drove him nuts. This ends now. Brice had thought his fighting days were over a long time ago, but the act of killing was like riding a bicycle. He turned on the war rage in his brain like a light-switch.
He heard the second and third explosions, but didn’t stop or falter. He couldn’t change whatever had just happened down below. All he could do was put an end to it.
He reached the second level, the Press Room right in front of him, and the door on the right not far away. He headed for it but suddenly stopped. From the far side, to his left, drifted the smoke of a cigarette.
* * *
Cole was actually savoring the pandemonium and the cigarette, his ego as high as it had ever been in his life. He had created this entertaining scenario, and despite the pain in his leg, was bound and determined to enjoy this orchestrated pandemonium, complete with loud music, mindless crazies, killing, and things blowing up.
He checked the time. He had about an hour to get as far away from here as possible. Before the real explosion occurred.
He would, of course, need another vehicle. After all, the SUV he arrived in had a little surprise in it.
As he took another puff, he felt a series of sharp stabs in the back of his head. Something had gone terribly wrong, and the sudden change of plans became clear as he glimpsed blood and brain matter dousing his cigarette. Then everything went black... forever.
* * *
Only Carla saw him fall. She hadn’t noticed him up near the Press Box window, as all her attention had been on getting everyone to safety. She glanced up in time to see Cole’s head blow apart and then his taking a swan dive into the seats below.
By the time she had aided Jack in sitting down, with Anna cuddled next to him, the insufferable Jungle song abruptly stopped. The silence that followed surprised them all. The confused mass of zombies grew docile, as if not knowing what to do. Sweet silence was the trump card the group needed.
Always the cop keeping track, Carla quickly counted persons present. Including Julie, there should have been eight. Joe was gone, and she pushed that incident from her mind. There were only six. Who was missing...
“Where’s Brice?” she asked.
Everyone looked around, shaking their heads.
“He was here, right here...,” the rest of the group murmured.
Meanwhile, Carla put two and two together. “He’s the one,” she said out loud.
“What?” Jared asked. “He’s the one who what?”
Carla didn’t answer, as Jack was sitting up.
“Where’s Joe?” he asked, worriedly.
The man she had come to love was a mess, bleeding from several significant wounds and covered in the blood of others... the blood of the infected.
“Jack... I’m sorry,” she said, compassionately.
He looked at her wearing a look of disbelief, and a tense, quiet moment passed between them. She didn’t have to say anything, at least not right then. He knew.