Reaper by K. D. Mcentire Page A

fire stairs, stops halfway up, vanishes on camera, and then reappears on the main floor. Even if Wendy were so lucky that the guard wasn't watching right then, her vanishing act would still be caught on camera, most likely recorded and stored on some distant backup hard drive for who knew how long. Wendy bit her lip to keep from groaning aloud; she had well and truly trapped herself.
    Realizing that she could do nothing for the moment, Wendy fought to keep her gorge down by breathing shallowly through her mouth and taking the steps two at a time now, hurrying as quickly as she could up the stairs.
    Wendy hadn't flinched much when the raccoon blood had splattered her from the knees down, and had hardly winced when Jon's dinner joined the mess, but being here, surrounded by the smell of the Walkers’ necrotic tissue and mealy, maggoty meat underlaid with a spicy cinnamon-rust-salt scent was almost too much. Wendy felt the burn of acid work its slow way up her esophagus. She frantically flicked a glance down the stairs, marveling as the Walkers rattled after her, silently begging for the door to the main floor to be next.
    Thankfully, it was.
    Holding her breath as casually as she could, Wendy shoved the door to the lobby as hard as she could.
    It wouldn't budge.
    Wendy stopped. The Walkers had congregated on the landing below. She could feel their cold rising up, filling the narrow walkway, icing over the guardrails.
    Forcing herself to stay calm, Wendy shoved the door again and this time, thankfully, it opened with a loud creak.
    Pretending everything was normal, Wendy entered the lobby and moved aside, adjusting her purse as if it were the most normal, casual thing to do in the middle of the night in a hospital entryway. Then, once she was several feet away, Wendy breathed in again, blessing the sweet, bleach-and-chemical tang of the air. Anything was better than the flat, gagging rot of the stairwell.
    The guard desk was empty, Wendy realized. The gift shop was dark.
    She was alone with over half a dozen Walkers.
    A slow scratch of sound sent a shiver up Wendy's spine. She didn't turn to see what the noise was—she didn't have to. The smell preceded them. The Walkers had surrounded her once again.
    It was colder now, Wendy realized. Much more intensely chilled than the stairs had been. Wendy's breath fogged in front of her, snot dripped out her left nostril. Wendy swiped at her face and found that she was shivering violently, teeth beginning to chatter.
    Wendy looked up at the ceiling. A black bowl hung directly in the middle of the lobby, a thin red light shining within; more frickin’ cameras, probably there to catch anyone shoplifting from the gift store or the pharmacy next door.
    Great, just great. Wendy was tempted to flip off the camera but the Walkers were so close now and the chill pressed the very air from her lungs. Breathing too deeply caused jagged slivers of pain to grip Wendy's chest, every inhalation scraping her throat raw. Ducking her head, Wendy was startled to realize that where the Walkers stepped, small sheets of ice crackled along the ground.
    Things had rapidly spiraled from bad to worse—the half-dozen Walkers from the elevator were joined by more; four others were waiting in the shadows of the gift shop doorway, their cloaks dragging the floor, their shambling gait almost synchronous as they drifted toward Wendy.
    The cold was so intense now, so overwhelming, that Wendy felt her body begin to sag from the weight of the chill. Moving her head, even slightly, took immense effort. Keeping her eyes open was becoming a chore.
    Stop being weak ! Her mother's voice cracked across her mind like a slap, rousing Wendy from the cold-induced fugue. Mistake after mistake after mistake; you're dying! Get it together, cover your back! Wake up! Wake up, Wendy, wake up!
    Futilely, Wendy decided that her mother's voice was right. Cameras or not, if she was going down, she was going down with a fight. A dozen to