“Which means we have to infiltrate a school full of scared kids and force this Trout guy to pony up the flash drives?” asked Boxer.
“In a nutshell.”
No one looked happy.
“I volunteered for this gig, boss,” said Boxer, “but I didn’t sign on to kill civilians, and I sure as shit won’t cut my way through a bunch of kids.”
Sam Imura said nothing. Around them, the storm slapped against the windows of the Humvee and the night seemed to go several shades darker.
Gypsy very quietly said, “If this thing gets out of the Q-zone it’s game over for the whole world. That’s not trash talk, Boxer. That’s not a bad line from a monster movie. That’s real shit and it’s what we’re here to stop. I don’t want to hurt anyone but bad guys, either, but if it’s a few civilians versus the rest of the fucking world … I mean, c’mon, is that even a discussion?”
No one answered that, not even Boxer.
“C’mon,” said Sam, “let’s go hunting.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
Dez Fox knew she was losing it.
Or maybe she had already lost it.
She knew that as certainly as she knew that she should not—should absolutely not—climb out of the window of the Stebbins Little School. All she had to do was close the window. Close it, lock it. Then close and lock the door to that room.
That was all.
Something simple.
A smart and very sane choice.
Which she did not make.
Instead she hooked a leg over the sill, shifted her buttocks onto the ledge, ducked her head out of the dry room and into the rain. Hands reached out of the storm to claw at her. Fingers that were withered to black claws by heat. Soot-stained teeth clacked together as the dead came for her.
Behind her, Billy Trout was screaming her name.
“Fuck you!” she growled.
Dez was never sure if she meant that for Billy or for the dead.
It didn’t matter.
Her mind was filled with the immediate images of those children. Her children. The little ones under her protection. Bitten. Infected. Doomed.
She jammed the barrel of the Glock against a charred forehead and fired.
Did it again to another infected.
Two of the dead fell back, their suddenly limp bodies collapsing against the other zombies, hampering them, tangling up with them.
Dez jumped down, using the pistol to smash aside the reaching hands. She kicked at wobbly legs, shattering bones, causing jagged splinters of white to rip through the blackened skin. She fired and fired. Every shot was point-blank.
Every bullet hit a face, a forehead, a temple.
Every hollow-point round did what it was manufactured to do. It expanded and exploded through the brain matter. Blowing out the backs of skulls, spattering the other dead with pieces of bone and brain. More than once the bullets, fired from so close, punched through one skull and then struck another.