5o

Remy

The only reason I stopped swinging the hammer was because my hands had grown too slick with blood. The handle slid from my grip and fell on the loft floor.

People were crying and yelling. Not all of them, but enough. I hadn't been able to hear anything when I'd been focusing on destroying Samara, and now the sound all came back like a roar.

"Let me go!" Castor was yelling and bucking at Boden, who still held him.

"Why didn't you stop her?" A woman was shrieking, and a man moved toward me, like he meant to stop me now.

Ripley had been sitting near the edge of the loft, licking her wounds, but she came over and put herself between me and the man. She gave a low growl, and he moved against the wall, cowering with the others.

After Ripley set everyone straight, they all fell silent, and it was only the zombies outside. Inside, it was just Castor crying, and my own ragged breath.

"Are you done?" Boden asked me.

I nodded, and he let Castor go. He ran past me to crouch beside Samara. There was nothing left of her head anymore, but he pressed his face against her chest as he sobbed.

"I am done… with her ," I said.

But when I moved toward the sledgehammer, Boden grabbed my arm to stop me.

"No, Remy. Nobody else up here had anything to do with Max's death."

"I know," I said, and I did.

But the rage still vibrated inside me. There was something black and dark filling the chasm of agony that had been left when Max died. I felt like I'd been hollowed out, all purpose and meaning and will to live had been torn out of me like a brutal evisceration. And all that was left was pain and anger and an insatiable hunger for retribution.

For ten years, ten long fucking years that were very frequently hellish, I had seen more senseless and unnecessary cruelty. Zombie against man, but even more man against man, or nature against man. All of the death, all of the suffering, all of the sacrifice. All of the pieces of myself I had given up to keep Max alive, to protect him from an indifferent world and a brutal neighbor.

And in a single moment, it was gone. It was all gone. Everything I had done, everything I had lived for, was gone .

Someone had to pay for that. For once, someone had to be held accountable for destroying something beautiful and good. Samara may have pushed Max out the window, but she wasn't what brought the zombies here.

No, that would be the proud mayor, Vaughn Douglas. I had warned that his fest was dangerous, that keeping the zombies nearby and feeding them was reckless, and that bringing that zombie child here was suicidal.

I had warned him. I warned everyone that I could. But nobody had listened.

I bent over and picked up my sledgehammer, and this time, Boden didn't stop me.

"Where are you going?" he asked as I started for the ladder.

"I'm going to find the mayor and make sure he pays for inviting this mess here," I said.

"Remy." Boden moved around in front of me, blocking my path. "He's probably already dead, and if he's not, you don't know where he is, and if you did, it is suicide going back out onto those streets. And we don't know when Lazlo will be back with the truck to get us out of here."

I nodded because I understood what he meant, and it all made sense. It just didn't matter, because I couldn't think about anything except killing everything between me and death, until there was nothing left.

"If he's alive, he's holed up in that old church," I said. "And if he's not there, the child zombie who can command the other zombies will be there, and I am damned sure that kid has something to do with this horde obliterating Emberwood tonight."

"It's still ridiculous to go out there. I need you. Stella and the baby will need you," Boden pleaded with me. "Don't give up on living to avenge the dead."

"I won't ask you to join me, but I won't let you stop me from leaving, either," I said.

Once more, softly, Boden entreated, "Remy, please. Max isn't all that you have."

"I know what I've lost and what I need to do." I looked into his eyes, so full of heartbreak and fear, but I couldn't feel either of those things then. A cold numbness had overtaken my body, but there was still rage and hunger gnawing at me.

He didn't argue with me after that, because he saw the futility in it. I would not listen. I could not be reasoned with.

I stepped around him, and he didn't try to stop me. I didn't want to go through the main floor doors and risk zombies getting to the others, so I went out the second story window.

The board ran from the window to the old convenience store behind it, but the mayor's office was on the opposite side of the garage, so the bridge would only take me the wrong way.

I turned back to face the garage, and I tossed my sledgehammer up onto the pitched barn roof. It slid down some, but the shingles provided enough resistance to catch it. I backed up and took a running jump on the board, and then I leapt up.

My fingers caught the edge of the roof, and I was left dangling over the wood planks and a pit of zombies ten meters below. I tried to climb up with my shoes, but they were still slick with viscera.

And then Boden's hand was beneath me, giving me a boost up, and I pulled myself up onto the roof.

I grabbed the sledgehammer and hung over the edge with it. Boden grabbed onto the hammer, and as I pulled him up, he used his feet on the siding to climb.

Once we were both on the roof, we sat back and took in the carnage around us. From this vantage point, I could see the multiple fires that had been started all over town. Zombies had tendencies to knock over flammable things and run through the fire without abandon, and people would fight with anything they could.

"You didn't have to come with me," I said. "You shouldn't have, actually. Stella and the baby will really need you."

"I'm not leaving you. I won't leave you the same way you won't be deterred."

There was a scraping on the wall, and a moment later, Ripley pulled her way up onto the roof. She walked over to me and bumped her head against mine. I buried my fingers in her fur and let her comfort me, because I think she needed it. She was a wild cat, but she had loved Max, too.

"So where do we go from here?" Boden asked.

But before I could answer, there was a rumbling at the old church next door, and we looked over to see the gorilla zombie had climbed onto the roof across from us.