Out of shells, I pulled my handgun from my belt as I leapt out of the beams toward the enemy in the dark.
One, two, three, four shots I fired and finally, I heard a body crash to the floor with a scraping of metal.
“You okay?” I asked in the dark. We were plunged in darkness the moment I stopped firing. I didn’t lower my weapon though.
“Yeah,” Tye groaned and suddenly a beam of light danced on the ceiling when he clicked the flashlight on. He climbed to his feet, favoring his back. I saw pain in his face as he searched the room for the body.
It was lying not seven feet from me. It laid prone, that broken leg sticking out at a grotesque angle.
Tye came to my side, pointing the flashlight directly at it. The light reflected back at us off of its gleaming metal skull. The skin that should have been on its hands was completely gone and it looked as if someone had clawed the flesh off its back. A grimy, silver spine rose in bumps and valleys and ribs held in ticking, pulsing organs. A few seconds later, they stopped and the body was completely still.
“What was it doing out?” Tye asked, wincing as he shifted his pack back into place.
“They’re not supposed to come out at night,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s the most cut and clear rule when it comes to the Bane.”
“There isn’t much that’s cut and clear about our world anymore,” Tye said with weight in his voice.
“What the hell?” Graye suddenly burst through the open doorway, his rifle held at the ready. Bill followed him half a second later. “What was that thing doing awake?”
“You’re going to wake more of them up if you don’t tone it down,” I said, fixing him with a severe stare.
“Sorry,” he said, his volume instantly dropping. “But seriously, what was it doing out?”
“I don’t know,” Tye whispered, quieter than was probably necessary. “But I think we’d better speed things up.”
We didn’t jog anymore when we got back to the alley. We sprinted.
Graye was puffing by the time we stopped at the back of the clinic. Pulling the window up, Tye, Graye, and I squeezed inside while Bill took watch.
The building had always been hit and miss in the past. Sometimes its halls were lined with sleeping, inactive bodies, sometimes it was clear. We were finally catching a break that day. It was empty.
Tye stuffed Graye’s pack full of latex gloves, antibiotics, hand sanitizer, and a dozen other things I didn’t even have names for.
We were out of there in less than two minutes.
Our last stop was the general store.
And it was the most dangerous one of all. There were several hundred Bane standing inside, silent, and empty. Unaware of the destroyed world just outside. Just how they were supposed to be at night.
Knowing it was stupid to split up, we moved as a soundless group through the aisles. Our first stop was for basic needs: toothpaste, soap, girl things. Our packs were starting to bulge.
The last thing we needed before we could go home was clothing. We weren’t animal enough just yet to run around naked, but going shirt shopping wasn’t the safest activity. The entire clothing department was filled with Bane. They stood between racks, in aisles, almost like they were going for a leisurely shop when the machine inside them made them stop caring about everything.
I stepped between two of them, watching their eyes to make sure neither of them would wake, being even more careful to not let my skin brush theirs.
Because one touch was all it took.
One touch to steal your humanity.
I winced every time a hanger made a noise as I pulled an item of clothing off. But none of them turned, none of them woke. The rest of my crew worked quickly as well, grabbing essential items: pants, shirts, jackets.
When our arms were loaded, we carefully stepped back into the wide aisle, watching the Bane as we retreated toward the front doors. We were careful not to trip over the debris that lined the floors. Looters less careful and less alive than us had torn the merchandise from shelves years ago.
Tye, then Bill, then Graye step out of the building and I was just about to leave when I heard something behind me.
It was quiet, just the shuffling of feet.
I turned, and saw what was once a little girl, staring emptily at me. Her metallic eyes shone in the dark. Her hair hung around her face in limp strings. She wore a pink frilly skirt that was covered in grime.
She couldn’t have been more than five.
The flesh on her jaw had decayed or been ripped away, exposing her teeth and wires that ran from her neck up into her head.
My first instinct was to shoot her. She may have been small but she was just as deadly as those full grown Bane behind her.
But if I did shoot, it could possibly wake more of them.
So I took one step away from her, out of the building. At first I had thought she must have gone back into inactivity mode.
But then she blinked.
I aimed my shotgun more accurately at her head, and backed away faster.
Little had I realized that the mechanical girl in front of me was the least of my worries.
A blinding light suddenly illuminated the concrete at my feet and I turned with my shotgun ready. The four of us were engulfed in a huge beam of light, and we were deafened by the sound of the helicopter circling us from above.
“RUN!” Tye screamed.
Don’t miss
THE BANE
Book One in
THE EDEN TRILOGY
AVAILABLE MARCH 5, 2013
Before the Evolution there was TorBane: technology that infused human DNA with cybernetic matter. It had the ability to grow new organs and limbs, to heal the world. Until it evolved out of control and spread like the common cold. The machine took over, the soul vanished, and the Bane were born. The Bane won’t stop until every last person has been infected. With less than two percent of the human population left, mankind is on the brink of extinction.
Eve knows the stories of the Evolution, the time before she wandered into the colony of Eden, unable to recall anything but her name. But she doesn’t need memories to know this world is her reality. This is a world that is quickly losing its humanity, one Bane at a time.
Fighting to keep one of the last remaining human colonies alive, Eve finds herself torn between her dedication to the colony, and the discovery of love. There is Avian and West — one a soldier, one a keeper of secrets. And in the end, Eve will make a choice that will change the future of mankind.
The Bane is The Terminator meets The Walking Dead with a heart-twisting romance.
Also by Keary Taylor
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Keary Taylor
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.
First Digital Edition: February 2013
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.