AN ACT OF LOVE [3]

Semi-conscious, Sam writhed and muttered, his eyelids fluttering.

His wrist poured with blood where the zombie had bitten into it, and while Purna stood guard with the shotgun, Xian Mei grabbed some more bandages and antiseptic ointment from a shelf to supplement the ones she had already put in her basket and quickly patched him up.

By the time she had finished, he was coming round, rubbing his head and wanting to know what had happened.

'Tell you later,' said Purna. 'You OK to walk?'

'I think so.'

'Here's your gun.' She thrust it at him almost brusquely. Scowling, she said, 'From now on, we keep our wits about us at all times.'

They took the rest of what they needed and hurried back through the double doors into the warehouse.

Xian Mei knew that Purna was angry with herself as much as anything; because of a split-second's distraction back there, Sam had almost died.

The Australian girl strode through the warehouse as if defying anyone to mess with her, and across to the broken staff entrance door, which they had pulled back into place as they entered.

Pushing the door open, she checked outside, then said, 'Right, open the loading bay doors. I'll get the van.'

Two minutes later Purna had backed the van into the warehouse. She and Sam quickly filled it with boxes while Xian Mei stood guard.

The car park was quiet and they were able to complete the task without interruption. Climbing into the van, Sam said, 'How much of this stuff are we giving to those guys?'

'Just enough to carry in one trip,' Purna said. 'Somehow I don't think the infected will stand by and watch us unloading box after box, do you?'

'What if they decide they want more?' said Xian Mei.

'Then they'll have to come out and get it themselves.'

They drove out of the car park and back round to the main street.

The situation was pretty much the same as before, the infected congregating largely at the far end. As they parked at the foot of the steps outside the police station, a naked man in his early twenties wandered in front of them, his legs, buttocks, and torso covered in bites.

They watched him silently until he was about thirty meters away, then Purna unclipped her seatbelt and climbed over the front seats into the back of the van.

She passed over two boxes of canned goods and a 12-liter plastic-wrapped pack of bottled water, before climbing over the seats into the front again.

'We take one of these each, run up the steps and let ourselves in. Sam, once we're inside, don't let the guys know you've got a gun – just in case.'

He nodded.

'Everyone remember the code number?' Sam asked.

'Four-two-seven-four,' Xian Mei replied without hesitation.

They looked out of the windows and in the mirrors, checking every direction to ensure none of the infected were close enough to surprise them.

Then Purna said, 'Go.'

Throwing open the doors, they jumped out of the van and ran up the steps. With one hand curled around the provisions tucked under their arms and the other clutching their weapons, they felt weighed down, encumbered.

The naked man spun towards them immediately, like a radar dish picking up a signal, and broke into a shambling run.

Sam turned halfway up the steps but paused a moment, not wishing to waste his shot. He allowed the man to get within five meters of him before pulling the trigger.

The bullet hit the man in the jaw, shearing half his face away and spinning him round in a clumsy pirouette. He rolled down the steps, but at the bottom, he picked himself up and doggedly started climbing them again.

Two more of the infected were now homing in on the steps behind him, but Xian Mei had reached the door and, after putting her box of food down on the floor, tapped in the four-number code.

To her horror, the red light failed to change to green. Thinking she must have done it wrong, she tried again, forcing herself to concentrate, knowing that all their lives depended on it.

Once more, the red light remained constant.

'It's not working!' she shouted.

Purna put down her own box of food and stepped forward, face set. 'Let me try.' Although she was certain she had done it right, Xian Mei knew this was no time to argue. She stepped back and allowed Purna access to the keypad.

A few feet away Sam pulled the trigger of his gun, and out of the corner of her eye, Xian Mei saw the naked man's head become a crimson spray.

As the zombie pitched backward down the steps, Purna punched in the four-number code. It gave Xian Mei no satisfaction to see the light remain stubbornly red.

'Shit,' Purna muttered and stepped away from the door. She turned to assess the situation, raising the shotgun.

Two zombies were coming up the steps towards them, an old man and a teenage girl.

The old man was shambling, dragging his left leg behind him; the girl was running, almost scampering, lips drawn back in a snarl, the metal braces on her teeth clogged with blackening meat.

Further away, other zombies seemed to be receiving the signal that there was fresh meat to be had here, and were turning round, sniffing the air, homing in.

Clinically, Purna took the girl out, the shotgun blast hitting her right in the center of her face, reducing her features to pulp. A few steps below her, Sam glanced round. 'What's going on?'

'Those bastards must have changed the entry code,' Purna said.

'How they do that?'

'They've got Dani, remember?'

'Shit!'

'We'd better get back to the van and rethink this,' Purna said.

'What about the food?' asked Xian Mei.

'Leave it.'

They were halfway back down the steps when a chunk of stone exploded less than a meter away from Sam's foot. He stared at it uncomprehendingly for a split-second and then something whacked into the pavement below, causing a mini-eruption of stone chips.

'Get down!' Purna yelled.

Sam ducked instinctively. 'What the fuck?'

'They're firing at us,' she said, dropping to a crouch, spinning round, and pulling the trigger of the shotgun all in the same movement. As the shotgun blast hit the building, and Purna hastily reloaded, Sam was aware of Xian Mei, bent almost double, leaping down the steps to his left.

'Go,' Purna said. 'I'll cover you.'

Knowing – as Xian Mei had done before him – that there was no debating the matter, he ran down the steps, catching up with Xian Mei at the bottom just as she straightened up and fired her flare pistol at a zombie that was still fifteen meters away but approaching rapidly enough that it would have reached them before they had the chance to open the van doors and scramble inside.

The front of the zombie's shirt burst into flame, and a

sheet of fire rose up and engulfed its head. It began to stagger around, arms waving like a kid playing blind man's bluff, as its face browned and sizzled like barbecue meat. The other zombies were still far enough away for them not to be an immediate problem. Keeping an eye on the burning zombie, Sam pulled open the passenger door of the van and shouted, 'Get in.'