Two Alive, стр. 18

“Those infected fiends were chasing two boys who fought them off for as long as they could, all the way to our door,” Ben explained.

“Fiends?” Julia spoke out the side of her mouth, continuing to watch what looked like a teeming chaos of ants going in all directions.

“That’s what the boys called them. When we saw them trapped with nowhere to go, we opened the door and let them in.”

“And I knew we shouldn’t have.” Carver’s cold eyes fell on Ben. “We put this whole community at risk doing that. And we’re still putting things at risk every second we let these kids stay here. We don’t know if they have more people out there waiting for us to open our doors and let them come in and take everything we have. Not to mention all the infected they just brought on us.”

“But we couldn’t just--”

“He’s right, Benjamin.” Julia finally looked away from the monitor. “Whatever the circumstances, it might not have been the best idea to let random people in here, again.”

“Julia, c’mon! They’re just kids!”

“Doesn’t matter Ben. You know that. A decision like this should’ve been made by all of us. And it doesn’t sound like you even had Eric on your side.”

“He didn’t,” The major added.

“But I shared Ben’s sentiment.” Manson was standing at the doorway of the office with Burrows and Castle holding the corpse next to him.

Julia frowned and gestured at the body, “Make sure no one sees that thing.”

“Oh of course. Of course.”

Julia sighed then rubbed at her eyes. “Where are these kids you’re talking about?”

Carver coughed and pointed a thumb at the closet. Julia shook her head at the major and went to the closet door. Anderson was standing there, looking nervously between the woman and his commanding officer.

“Give me the damn key,” Julia said.

“Just give it to her, Anderson.” Carver followed up with an exasperated sigh.

Anderson gave her the key and she went to open the door. As soon as she unlocked it and turned the knob, the door burst open and Julia was bum-rushed by a teenaged boy who put a small knife to her neck. The boy looked just as surprised to see Julia as she was to see him.

“Holy shit!” Nadine said from across the room.

Carver pulled his pistol free and aimed it at the boy. “Drop the knife!”

It wasn’t until Carver gave the order that Anderson trained his own weapon on the kid.

“Fuck you! Let us go!” Antonio looked around.

“Just give us some supplies and let us go. We’ll just leave,” Miles said as he came out behind his brother.

“Miles, Antonio, please! Don’t do this. Just, everyone calm down.” Ben stepped forward with his hands raised. “Carver, lower your gun. Antonio, put the knife down.

“Fuck you!” Antonio replied.

“No, fuck you!” A voice shouted, and a girl came charging in from the doorway, tackling Antonio.

The knife went sliding across the floor and before Carver could step in to break up the two children wrestling, Ben separated them. Miles watched the girl being pulled off Antonio, kicking and screaming at his brother, and for a moment he saw her green eyes flicker in the ceiling lights. She was beautiful, with auburn hair and a dust of freckles across her cheeks. Miles was smitten.

“Alana, calm down. Calm down,” Ben said, pushing the girl back. He kept a hand on Antonio’s chest and urged him to stay down.

“Maybe now you can see why I was so hesitant about these kids.” Carver put his gun back in his waistband.

“I sure as hell can.” Julia was back on her feet and the expression on her face was nearly as garish as the major’s.

“Who the fuck are they anyway?” Alana looked at Ben, “Dad, what’s going on?”

“Everything’s fine, sweetheart.” Ben’s eyes were darting between the major and Julia. “Look, I did tell them to open the doors and it’s on me that these two boys were let in. But we can’t fault them for wanting to survive. Since they got in here we haven’t exactly been welcoming.”

“And who says that we should be!” Carver was nearly screaming, and a vein could be seen pulsing on his neck. He went into a fit of coughing and put a fist over his mouth.

“Calm down, Eric.” Julia sighed and shook her head at Ben, “I don’t know anything more than what you’ve already told me and I already find it hard to trust a kid who put a knife to my throat.”

Antonio was on the floor, his chest rising and falling with each fevered breath. He caught eyes with Julia, saw the hardline expression on Carver’s face, and also saw the desperation in Ben’s pleading. Miles was lost in the moment and could only keep his eyes on Alana. He wasn’t listening to anything the adults were saying.

“Should we kick them out?” Captain Baker had been quiet in the room up to this point, until now.

“Wait a minute, just wait!” Ben pointed at Baker, “This doesn’t have to end the same way as before. It doesn’t!”

Even on the floor, Antonio still recognized the soldier who had hit him with the butt of his gun earlier. Captain Baker was white, six-two, solid build with a square jaw. Antonio was still sure he could take the brute.

“Please… just let us go. We only came looking for food. We’ll just leave. We promise.” Miles started rocking where he stood.

Carver looked the two boys over again and saw the blank expressions on Antonio and Miles’ faces. Not because they were worried about how things would turn out but because they seemed to not care. Antonio’s eyes were roaming the room. He was looking for an opportunity to change their current situation. Miles was just trying to negotiate to