Two Alive, стр. 95

“What if there isn’t a way?” Lance said back.

“There’s always a way.”

“What if there isn’t?!” Lance stopped and turned around to the boy.

Miles stopped pushing his bike and looked back at him, “Then you die. But you don’t die until you die.”

Lance sucked his teeth and turned around to see a figure stumble out from behind a tree in front of him. “Holy shit!”

Miles threw down his bike and looked around with a new focus. “Check left, check right!” He called out.

Castle looked back at the small boy and dropped to one knee. “Check left, check right.”

Burrows was hesitant at first but dropped down as well, “Uh, right! Roger!” He swung his gun left then right and Castle had to move to avoid the barrel of his gun.

“I don’t see anything. Nada.” Torrez looked around and grabbed Clint to pull the old man behind him.

Lance backed away from the lumbering creep as it groaned, and it dropped to the ground from fatigue. “Help… help!” Lance shouted.

“Castle get over here and help him. Lance is your guy. You gotta watch him.” Torrez aimed his weapon at the simpleminded creature shuffling to try and stand back up. It was wet in a long t-shirt and dark cargo pants.

“It’s a lurker. It’s one of the slower moving infected.” Miles moved towards it slowly, with his knife in hand. “You can kill it Mr. Lance. Easy. Just a knife to the head and it’s over.” He imitated the gesture and the monster tried to lunge at him but fell down again. “You can do it.”

“No… no! Kill it!” Lance’s heart started to race, and his palms started to sweat.

The infected husk with empty white eyes, outstretched its arms and clawed the air, reaching for Lance. Miles stepped up behind it and with one hard thunk, he drove his blade into the back of the monster’s head. Miles stared at Lance and Lance looked back at him trying to catch his breath. The body dropped to the ground and Manson moved to collect samples. Then more lurkers started creeping out in the distance.

Clint looked around scared, “There are more of them coming!”

Miles turned, “Ok, there’s only--”

A spray of gunfire tore through the trees and splattered the four slow moving creatures. They dropped after several shots and Burrows stood up, raising his weapon in the air.

“Whoo! That’s how you do it!” Burrows pumped his fist in the air with his gun raised.

“No guns!” Miles dropped down, panicked and covering his ears. He pulled his phone out and started scrolling. “No guns! No guns! You can’t shoot! You can’t shoot or more will come! More will come!”

Burrows shook his head, looking at the boy strangely, “Man… that was a lot of them. We can’t just fight them hand to hand.”

“Burrows! Miles said don’t shoot your gun out here!” Julia was spinning around, looking in every direction but also making her way to help Miles; who was freaking out. “He said don’t use any guns!”

“Puta! What’s wrong with you?” Torrez stomped over to Burrows and shoved him.

“Hey man! Watch it!” Castle got between them and pushed Torrez.

“I killed those things! That’s why we out here right? To protect them…” Burrows pointed at Lance, Clint, Julia and Manson. “What was the point of bringing guns if we ain’t usin’ them?”

Miles was still down and scrolling through the songs in his playlist. He finally stopped on Jody Watley, Looking For a New Love.

Burrows scoffed at the music coming from the boy’s phone. “I can’t shoot my gun, but he can play his stupid music all he wants?”

“Burrows!” Julia snapped at him. “Miles, you have to calm down ok. Burrows won’t use his gun again. But look, there aren’t any infected people around.” She was kneeling next to the boy.

Manson was opening his bag and making his way to the corpses, “Burrows is right. If gunfire will attract them, that music will too.”

Julia side-eyed the doctor but let it go, whispering to Miles to turn the music down. Miles just rocked next to her and struggled with pulling out his earbuds to put them back in.

“That kid retarded.” Burrows turned up his lip, “He gon get us killed out here, listenin’ to him.” He stomped off and Torrez launched curses at him.

“He’s fucking autistic you dumb fuck!” Torrez spit after cursing again in Spanish.

“I found somethin’!” Clint was off on his own, pointing a gun down at a long since dead body. “It looks like David’s jacket. Is this him?”

Lance ran over to the old man and turned the body over on the ground. He recognized Franklin’s dirtbag brother, no problem. “This is him. This is David! They’re close! They have to be!”

“They’re close? Where? Where are they?” Alana was spinning around, ready to go sprinting in any direction.

“Where do we go kid?” Castle was moving towards Miles, who was still rocking on the ground, and Torrez stepped in front of him.

Lance took off running in the direction Miles last told them to go.

***

Carver woke up, being carried with his feet dragging across the floor and shoved the two men off him.

“Umph! Sorry sir.” One of the men stumbled and dropped his gun.

“What the hell is going on?” Carver took a few steps back and tried to gather himself and regain his composure.

“Eric! Calm down!” Chakrabarti pushed the two lunkheads aside and went to check his patient.

“Martyn… what happened?” The major was starting to recognize faces and saw Dr. Martyn Chakrabarti standing in front of him. The world around him made sense. He was in the hallway near Manson’s lab.

“You passed out in the security room. We were taking you to Manson’s bathroom