Love in the Time of the Dead by Tera Shanley Page B

clear.
    “What’s happening?” Sean asked when she returned.
    “I’d say someone just made an impressive attempt at assassinating you.” She held up a muzzle and a short length of rope she had found in his bedroom. “That Dead’s been in there for a while from the smell of it.” She kicked the body of the Dead with the toe of her boot. “I think he finally wised up and figured out how to open the door to let himself out.”
    The screams outside were becoming more frantic, and the gunfire more frequent.
    “I have to help them,” Sean said.
    Laney nodded. “Weapons.”
    Sean flew into action. Any hints of shock or indecision vanished. He set Adrianna on his bed and strapped himself into a small arsenal of weapons he kept on a shelf in his closet. Laney provided the light from her flashlight and waited. The want for action pulled at her, too. Her team was out there.
    Sean finished strapping in and rushed into Adrianna’s room. He grabbed a small pink stuffed bunny in a floral dress and handed it to the little girl. Shoving handfuls of her clothes into a small pink backpack, he placed it snugly on her back.
    A guard came flying up the stairs, talking so fast he couldn’t be understood.
    “Breathe!” Sean yelled. “Now tell me. What happened?”
    “Sir, someone has opened the gates.” He panted for air. “They let a bunch of Deads in and then closed the gates again.”
    “Which gates?”
    “All of them, sir.”
    Sean cursed under his breath. Laney could almost see his mind racing, analyzing a hundred different ways to save his people.
    “Sean,” she said quietly. She picked up Adrianna, who was still wide-eyed and sniffling. “We have to get her out of here.”
    “Adrianna,” Sean said in a rush. “You’re going to go with Laney, okay? I’ll meet up with you in just a little while.”
    “No, Sean. That’s not good enough! You’re all she has left, and you know as well as I do that if you go out there you won’t come back. Not alive.” She swallowed back all of the hurt and memories of her father not being around when she was scared. She couldn’t allow that for Adrianna. Not if she could stop it.
    “Sir,” the guard said. “Colony is gone. Most are turned or turning. Any unbitten are gathering downstairs in the auditorium.”
    “You can’t save them, Sean. But you can save her,” Laney pleaded. “Come with me. My team and I can get you out.”
    “Follow me,” Sean said, flying down the stairs. The man had an apparent penchant for ignoring sage advice.
    She scooped up Adrianna, who was surprisingly light in her arms. Sean led them to a door opposite the bottom of the stairwell. The door opened to a small room with a wall of one-way glass. A dated diaper changing table with cartoon kangaroos was pressed against the furthest wall. The room must have been a baby room, built for moms with fussy infants to view the church services without interrupting. The lights were still on in the auditorium, making it easy to see everything. The acoustics were impressive. She could hear almost everything that was being said.
    The majority of survivors were armed guards, not surprisingly. A thin stream of people were filing in through the double doors leading to the outside. A group of armed men were checking each survivor for bites, and Laney jumped and hugged Adrianna tighter when the men brutally shot a woman after finding a suspicious wound on her arm. There was no emotion involved and they went to the next survivor as if nothing had happened. Her stomach lurched, and she turned away from the horrifying scene. A figure stood in the pulpit. Erhard leaned across a podium as he gave orders and tried to rally the men.
    “We have been a defensive colony for too long,” he yelled. “We watch the Deads at our gates. We study their habits, and for what? A cure? They should never have lived to threaten us in the first place, but that was the will of our fallen leader. He made us weak. He kept our colony