Then Betts seemed to loosen his grip, and it took Josh a few seconds to realize he wasn’t doing it on purpose. Gaby was standing behind Betts, hitting him repeatedly in the back of the neck, and each time Gaby pulled her hand back to strike again, it was covered with blood that got redder and darker with each stroke. Something shiny was glinting in Gaby’s fingers, and Josh recognized the key to the cage. Gaby wasn’t hitting Betts, she was stabbing him in the back of the neck repeatedly with the key.
Josh saw Betts’s eyes start to roll in their sockets and felt his fingers lose strength. Finally, Josh was able to break free. He scrambled to his feet as Gaby staggered back, her right hand covered in thick gobs of blood, the key gripped between two of her fingers with the point sticking out like a weapon. She met Josh’s eyes, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if she was afraid or horrified or indifferent. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but there was no time for that.
Instead, Josh turned back to Betts, who was kneeling on the floor slightly slumped over, blood gushing out of four — five — holes in the back of his neck. He was in shock and didn’t seemed to be moving, but Josh could hear him moaning. Josh gathered as much strength as he could and lifted his right leg and brought it forward into the side of Betts’s head. The man’s entire body careened over sideways to the cage floor, where he lay shaking, staring accusingly up at Josh and Gaby.
“Come on, we have to go,” Josh said as he grabbed Gaby’s left hand, the one without all the blood (he wondered if he had done that on purpose?) and led her through the open cage door.
But then Josh stopped and hurried back inside, rushing over to the other woman. She was slowly pushing herself up from the floor, and he could tell she was hurt and dizzy from the blow she had taken when she flew into the cage bars.
“Come on,” Josh said, holding out his hand to her.
She stared at his hand, then at him, and he could see her mind reeling, trying to decide if she could trust him, trust Gaby, trust someone other than herself right now. She finally made up her mind and grabbed his hand, and he pulled her up. She was a lot heavier than she looked.
They rushed through the cage door. Gaby was waiting outside. She had dropped the key and was clutching her arms around her chest, trembling noticeably.
“Come on,” Josh said, and started through the semitrailer.
“Wait,” the woman said, and Josh turned around and saw her heading for the gun rack. She grabbed a handgun off a hook — it looked like one of those black plastic guns that Folger had used to hit him — and snatched up a couple of magazines.
Good idea.
He hurried over. The rack was filled with an obscene amount of weapons, from the kind Folger carried to big rifles that looked like they probably weighed more than he did. Josh had never seen weapons like that in person, only in the movies, and they looked almost as difficult to use as they probably were to lift.
Then he saw it — Matt’s silver chrome revolver. And nearby, Matt’s backpack. Josh grabbed both items, shoving the gun into the backpack, then grabbed a couple more guns nearby, including as many magazines as he could scoop up with one hand. He didn’t even know if they would fit the guns, but they were the same color and, well, he could find out later.
He saw Betts’s radio, sitting on the box of clothes. Josh grabbed it, too, and when he looked back, he saw the woman was walking toward the cage, toward Betts, and knew what she was going to do.
“No,” Josh said.
She looked back at him, bloodlust in her eyes. She wanted to kill Betts. She was going to kill Betts.
“No,” Josh said again. “The gunshot. They’ll hear it. We need all the head start we can get.”
She was probably expecting a different argument, but what he said took her by surprise and, to his relief, she nodded back.
Josh picked up the key Gaby had dropped. It was still covered in blood and clumps of flesh and hair, and it made him a little queasy just to touch it. He hurried over and locked the cage. Betts was lying on his side on the floor, probably dead. It didn’t look like he was moving at all, and there was a big puddle of blood underneath him.
“Let’s go,” Josh said, moving through the semitrailer.
The damn thing seemed to go on forever. When they finally reached the opening, Josh stopped and held back his hand toward the women. They both stopped short and waited as he stepped down the ramp, just far enough to lean around the corner. He expected to see Folger or maybe Manley standing outside. God, he hoped Manley wasn’t out there — the guy scared the shit out of him. They all did, but Manley was the worst, with his reptile eyes.
But there was no one out there.
The semitrailer and the big rig that pulled it sat inside a wide and mostly empty parking lot under the baking sun. He recalled the layout of Lancing from the last two weeks he and Matt had spent looking for supplies. The parking lot was part of the city’s municipal area, with a courthouse, a city hall building, and a public library behind him. The street out front led toward North Main Street, where the city’s business area resided. That was probably where Folger and the rest were at the moment.
“Okay,” Josh said, and the women hurried down the ramp after him.
They weren’t that far from the house he, Gaby, and Matt had stayed in, and where Folger had caught them. It was about a block down to their right. The same house that a turned Matt probably still haunted. Or maybe Folger had gone down to the basement to kill Matt (again). If you could even kill them once they turned.
“Where are we going?” Gaby asked, when they were all in the parking lot.
Lancing was a decent-sized city with about 12,000 people. Homes were spread out, intermingled with businesses. Across the street in front of them was a row of private homes. More, mostly older ones, were spread out to their right, and he remembered a subdivision of newer models about a mile north.
“Josh?” Gaby said, sounding anxious when he didn’t answer right away. “Where are we going?”
“The business district’s that way,” Josh said, pointing to his left. “Folger and the others are probably there now. That’s where I’d be if I was raiding for supplies. We’ll go in the opposite direction. There are lots of new houses there. We can hide out in one of them.”
Josh began jogging up the street and the two women followed. He glanced at his watch: 6:25 p.m.
“What about a car?” the woman said. She was keeping up with him just fine. In fact, she wasn’t breathing hard at all, while Josh and Gaby were already out of breath. “We can use it to get out of here.”
“It’ll be dark soon,” Josh said. “We’re better off staying here until morning.”
“But won’t they find us again?” Gaby asked.
“There are hundreds of homes here. The area we’re headed to has about a hundred of those in a thousand-foot square block. They’re not going to search all of them, not before nightfall. We can figure out what to do in the morning.”
That seemed to reassure them enough that neither Gaby nor the woman argued.
After a few minutes of walking, Josh led them across the street and through a wooded area where they couldn’t be spotted from the roads. He kept them on a straight path until they emerged into an open spot with two sprawling lodges to their right. Josh remembered debating with Matt about whether to try their luck inside the buildings just a few days ago.