Maddie stood back up and fired another three-round burst in Mason’s direction before dipping back behind the counter. Blaine heard more windows breaking and glass shattering against floor tiles. He knew she was trying to conserve bullets because they had a limited amount. She was already on her second magazine. Her last magazine.
Blaine leaned out from behind the counter to try to find Gerry when two bullets zipped through the wooden counter and almost took his head off. Chipped wood flew inches from his face, spraying the floor and tossing slivers into his hair. He ducked and crawled backward away from the spot, expecting Gerry to keep shooting, but for some reason the man finally stopped.
Maybe he’s running out of bullets…
Yeah, right.
He looked over at Maddie again, back behind cover, biding her time. She seemed lost in thought, and he imagined she was probably counting how many shots she had fired. He saw her switching her rifle’s fire selector to semi-automatic.
“You still alive over there, Maddie?” Mason shouted from somewhere in the store.
“More alive than Lenny,” Maddie shouted back.
“Shit, you killed Lenny?”
“Damn right! We have his weapons, too.”
Blaine grinned.
Smart girl.
Someone fired off two quick shots, followed by silence. Bullet casings clattered around on the store tiles in the aftermath.
“You missed, Bobby!” Mason shouted. His voice echoed, and it was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. “You never could shoot for shit, kid. Frankly, I’m disappointed you joined in on this fun exercise. I expected more from you.”
Blaine heard another couple of shots, then two more bullet casings clacking against the floor. Bobby, replying the only way he knew how, with his rifle.
“Miss me, miss me, now you gotta kiss me!” Mason shouted, then laughed hysterically.
The guy’s out of his fucking mind.
Blaine was counting how many bullets he had fired (Five…or six?) when he heard a loud crunch behind him and instantly knew it was boots stepping on broken glass. He shot up like a cannon, raising his gun—
And saw Gerry standing ten feet away, pointing his M4 in his face. Blaine’s gun was only halfway up and he knew he was dead. Gerry knew it, too, because he had the mother of all self-satisfied smirks on his face as he stared back at Blaine behind the iron sights of the rifle.
Before Gerry could fire, there was a gunshot and Gerry’s right shoulder seemed to explode and blood spurted out. He twisted sideways and as he did, he squeezed the trigger and the M4 raked the store in a series of three-round bursts that blew away mannequins and scarred racks of clothes and shattered counter tops.
Blaine finished raising his gun and shot Gerry twice in the side. This time he didn’t miss.
Gerry stumbled into racks of clothes and pulled them down with him to the floor until he was lying still, his body and face covered in pants and shirts.
Blaine hurried over to where the gunshot that had saved his life had come from. He found Sandra leaning against a full-length mirror that covered the door of a fitting room. She slid down to the floor as he rushed over. The Glock — Lenny’s Glock — dropped from her fingers.
His eyes widened at the sight of her hands holding her stomach, blood slipping through her fingers in bright red streams.
He kneeled next to her and put his hands over hers. “You’ll be fine,” he said, trying to smile, trying to convince her. To convince himself. It wasn’t working. “You’ll be fine. I’ve seen worse.”
“Really?” Her voice was soft and calm and came out almost as a whisper. She was smiling at him as she said it. “Where did you see worse, babe?”
“You’re talking to a guy who was shot three times, remember? You just got shot once. This is child’s play. You’ll be fine.”
“He got me pretty good, babe.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said again. “You’ll be fine.”
He grabbed some clothes draped over a rack and pulled them free. He took her hands and pried them from her stomach. She fought him, but he was stronger and she finally let go. Blood gushed out in the split second it took him to push the shirts over her wound. He wrapped the long sleeves of one of the shirts around her body to keep them in place. Blood instantly soaked the pink fabric and turned it a dark, violent red.
“See?” he said, smiling at her. Or trying to. He couldn’t hide the desperation in his voice, and he knew she could hear it, too. “Good as new. I told you. Good as new.”
She looked at him through pain and sweat, and she still looked beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. “You’re sweet, but you’re a lousy liar.”
“Who’s lying?”
“You are.”
“Bullshit. You’ll be fine.”
“Liar,” she whispered, “but I love you anyway.”
“I love you too,” he said.
The emotions came suddenly, washing over him in waves, and he felt terrified and impotent.
Sandra reached up with one bloodied hand and touched his cheek gently. “Go to Song Island,” she said, her voice so soft and weak he had to strain to hear her. “Take Maddie and Bobby. Go to Song Island and try to be happy.”
He shook his head. “Not without you. That’s the plan, remember?”
“I’m not coming back from this. Not this one. We’ve used up all our lives, baby. You and me. But you have to keep going. If you love me — if you care about me — you’ll keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”
“I—” he started, but stopped.
Sandra closed her eyes, and she wasn’t breathing anymore. Her head tilted to one side, and all the life drained from her face. His beautiful Sandra, who had changed his life, given him the best gift anyone had ever given him by loving him back.
She was gone. Just like that, she was gone.
Blaine sat and stared at her. He wasn’t sure how long he kept that pose, unable to move, to feel. His brain might have shut down on him, and he wasn’t aware of actually breathing or thinking or even being. Even the continued sounds of gunfire behind him didn’t shake him loose. He could barely hear them anyway.
He willed Sandra’s eyes to open, for her lips to part and start breathing again. It might have been seconds, or minutes, or maybe hours.
The sounds of footsteps invaded his fog, followed by voices. He wasn’t sure who they belonged to. Maddie, perhaps, or maybe Mason come to finish what Gerry started. Maybe that was for the best. He couldn’t imagine going on without Sandra anyway.
So he waited for the bullet that never came.
Then Maddie was crouching next to him, nudging him on the shoulder, trying to get his attention. “Blaine. Blaine…”
He turned his head slowly to look at her, saw the whiteness of her face, the worry in her eyes, the thin sheet of stinging sweat. He looked back at Sandra, because he was afraid she might disappear if he took his eyes away from her for too long.
Come back, Sandra, come back to me…
“He’s gone,” Maddie was saying. “Mason. After you killed Gerry, he ran off. It’s almost nightfall. We need to get ready for tonight. I don’t know how this is going to affect them. The ghouls. We need to get ready, just in case.”
Hands grabbed and lifted him from the floor. Blaine wasn’t sure if he was supposed to fight them or not. So he did nothing. Bobby was surprisingly strong.
Then he was walking through the store, through the destroyed racks of clothing and bullet-riddled counters. Over shirts and pants and shoes and jewelry. There was glass everywhere. And more jewelry, and even more clothing, and bullet casings sliding under their shoes.