No easy way out.
The other side was angled, reminding her of the slope on an A-frame house, built high in the mountains somewhere. It was in the shadows, like the inside of the ambulance she’d passed earlier. No sunlight on its surface.
Damn it, more ice.
Summer ran to the slanted area and jumped. Her feet hit the surface exactly where she had aimed, but they flew out from under her, twisting her body around as she fell. Down she went, on her butt, like a grade-schooler on a water slide, hitting a puddle at the bottom of the canal with a plop.
She needed a new plan before the Scabs caught up. She got up and ran to the collection of tree branches piled next to the bank. They’d probably been blowing around for days, coming to rest here. She snatched a thick stick and broke it in half over her knee. The ends were jagged—hopefully sharp enough, she prayed.
Summer took a run at the angled bank again, this time launching herself headfirst with a broken tree limb in each of her outstretched hands. The pointy ends slammed into the ice. So did her stomach, taking her breath away.
The pain was tolerable, but the downhill grade wasn’t. The sticks she’d made couldn’t penetrate the ice deep enough to act as icepicks, sending her zipping down the bank once again, this time landing on her knees in a crack.
The Scabs tore out from the tunnel behind her, their feet pounding at the cold cement covering the spillway’s expanse. It only took seconds for them to arrive.
“Stay away from me!” Summer yelled, holding the sticks out in a defensive position as they formed a semi-circle in front of her.
CHAPTER 2
Summer hoped the Scabs would heed the spear-like branches in her hands, seeing them as a threat. In truth, they weren’t much of a defense against this many Scabs, but she had to pretend they were.
One of the Scabs, who didn’t have a knife, took a step forward, his breath deep and purposeful. He was younger than the others, who had decided to hold back in watch mode, as if this encounter had been planned in some way.
“Probably a junior cannibal,” she quipped, keeping her eyes locked on his nose-less face. There wasn’t much to the meat-eater—his gaunt, pale skin hung from his bones.
Two of his fingers were missing on his free hand—more frostbite, she assumed, or someone in his group had needed a snack, munching on younger flesh.
Or maybe his digits were considered expendable, depending on how the cannibals viewed others in their gang. A gang of all men, if you could still call them that, their gender and their humanity slipping away with each course of flesh.
Her mind drifted off topic as the gang moved in concert with each other, stepping another foot closer. She wondered why nobody had ever seen a female Scab. Maybe the male Scabs had eaten all the women, and not in a good way, she pondered, wondering if she was going to die a virgin. She flushed the random thoughts from her mind, bringing her focus back to the throng of teeth aimed at her.
Despite his lack of size, Summer knew the junior Scab’s hunger would make him difficult to stop, if he decided to—
That’s when he came at her in a snarl, arms out and mouth open. Summer brought her hands together, then swung the pair of sticks like a baseball bat.
Her swipe landed on the mark, catching the attacker in the side of the face. His skin ripped open in a bloody tear, but the blow didn’t stop his advance.
His chest slammed into hers, driving her back in a stumble until she hit the wall of the spillway. When the cement met her spine, the sudden force stung her, taking the strength from her legs. She fell. So did the Scab, sending both of them slamming into the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.
Summer tried to stab the attacker but couldn’t bring the pointed tips around, not with him on top of her. There wasn’t enough room. She dropped the branches, then tried to wriggle free. He had the advantage, his leverage greater than her strength, their faces now eye to eye.
A glob of drool hung from his mouth as his teeth came into view. Summer turned her head in a flash as the dollop dropped, the putrid-smelling saliva landing on her cheek instead of her lips. Her throat convulsed, wanting to throw up, but she held it down.
When she brought her eyes back to his, his head exploded in a spray of red, as the sound of gunfire ripped through the air.
She watched his brain matter fly apart in what she could only describe as slow motion, her mind taking in every detail one frame at a time. It looked like a rotting, blood-filled cantaloupe had been destroyed by a bazooka, all of it captured on high-speed film in some old Hollywood movie.
More gunshots rang out, only this time they weren’t aimed at the Scab lying dead on her chest. She rolled her neck to the side and watched the bullets tearing into the rest of the Hunger Gang, their bodies flying apart like balsa wood.
Tissue went one way, blood the other, as round after round hit its mark. It was both a massacre and a miracle—someone coming to her rescue just in the nick of time.
Summer pushed the corpse off, grabbed the sticks, and rolled to her feet. When she looked up, she counted seven men—all up on the bank, high above her position. Each was bearded. Most were burly and none of them wore sleeves, despite the near-freezing temperature and constant wind.
Her eyes found their way to their high-powered rifles and tactical vests stuffed with ammo magazines. When she looked a few inches higher, she noticed what looked like grenades attached near the top, though Summer couldn’t be sure. She’d never seen one of the explosives in real life, only in the books she read at her secret library.
Camo pants completed their outfits, along with black military-style boots. Two of the men had something in their mouths, their jaws in constant chew and spit mode, looking the part of grizzled hunter—ready to kill.
“I thought they had you there for a minute,” a bald, dark-skinned man said, his face glistening under the sun. The towering brute was ultra-handsome and had the deepest voice Summer had ever heard. Every word was smooth and commanding.
“Almost,” she said, unable to take her eyes from who she assumed was their leader.
The black man pointed at the sticks in her hands, his shoulders as wide as a silo’s missile bay. “You don’t need those anymore.”
She dropped the branches, figuring it was best to follow his suggestion and not appear threatening to the gang who’d just saved her from a painful death.
Summer ran the standoff through her mind, deciding that if the situation spun sideways, her would-be saviors would have to scamper down to her position, allowing her a chance to grab her sticks and make a run for it. If that happened, she’d need to head out the same tunnel she’d just come through.
Of course, if they decided to just open fire, she was dead already, regardless of whether or not she still had the makeshift weapons in her grasp.
“Good thing we came along when we did,” a second man said. He had white, cherubic cheeks and huge bulge around his middle. He, like most of the others, had long, out-of-control hair and was loaded with guns and ammo.
A fat Rambo, Summer thought, holding back a smile. “Thanks for the save,” she said in her most genuine tone, noticing each man had a tattoo stenciled along his neck—the same tattoo—just below the ear on the left side.
She recognized the symboclass="underline" interlocking chains, a sign of unity and strength. The facts led her to only one conclusion. This band of mouth breathers was a security patrol. One sent out by their leader, Simon Frost—a blonde Neanderthal who ran the south side of town. Rumor had it that every man under his command was branded with the same mark.
Some sort of sick control issue, she decided, changing her tone to one of confidence. “You guys aren’t supposed to be here.”