“Hell if I know. I was too busy driving, had to run over a bunch of infected, nearly got stopped by the crowd of them but we made it into the clear and then it was dodging wrecks and debris. I had to take a lot of side streets and back roads. We stopped at a rest area to get organized well outside the city and I did hear one of the roadies suggest this place as a spot to head for, said he’d grown up here and there was one family in charge and if Lally could work her magic on them, we’d probably be safe. Guess he was right.”
Tamsyn stood up and took the man’s empty plate and the mug. “Welcome to Rosewater,” she said as she walked away.
Chapter Seven
She guessed word had spread among the guards who didn’t know her that she was important to Jonny because she was allowed to wander pretty much wherever she pleased in the house itself. Rather than return to the dormitory-style bedroom full of strangers, she found a couch in the library and curled up there for a nap. Her sleep was full of nightmares and eventually she got up and went to the kitchen, where she found Devora, red-eyed with bags under her eyes, already working on prep for breakfast, which was hours away. “Can’t sleep either?”
Devora shook her head. “I’m too scared. We’ve been okay so far but I feel like things are breaking down, people are getting careless. Jonny’s clearly distracted by this singer who latched onto him, which doesn’t help. He may be acting like a barbarian warlord but at least up to now he had the situation under control.”
Tamsyn wasn’t so convinced but she hadn’t been living in town so she kept her opinion to herself. Besides, she and Devora were allies right now but the situation could shift any moment and she didn’t trust Devora not to throw her under the bus to save herself if necessary.
Around 2AM she heard a vehicle approaching the house, horn blaring and then the sound of someone running up the stairs shouting. Curious, apprehension growing in her mind, she and Devora ran to the foyer together.
Benjy Slocum was there, shouting. “Where in the seven hells is Jonny? I’ve been trying to get a hold of him for the last hour.”
“What’s the matter?” Tamsyn asked.
His eyes cut to her and he seemed relieved to find a person he knew. “Scouts report a big damn swarm of the fucking infected coming up route 12. We ain’t gonna be able to hold them without reinforcements and it may already be too late. I heard a lot of blasters as I drove away.”
“He and Lally went to his suite hours ago,” Tamsyn said, pointing at the stairs.
Benjy rushed past her, running up the stairs. She followed and halfway up the huge staircase stopped for a second to draw the blaster from her boot. When she got to the top and ran down the corridor, Benjy was pounding on the door, cursing. He backed up a step and kicked the panel in with a violent splintering of wood. Growling, Lally leaped at him, sinking her fangs into his chest and taking him to the floor at Tamsyn’s feet. She retreated a step, firing her blaster at Lally at point blank range. The shot obliterated the singer’s forehead and she slumped across her victim, black ichor oozing. Without any hope, Tamsyn edged past the bodies to check on Jonny but one horrified glance was enough to tell her the story of what had transpired in the master suite over the last few hours. Lally had obviously turned and Jonny had been no match for her. Only the locked door had kept the infected singer from rampaging through the house.
A hand gripped her ankle and Tamsyn screamed, weapon at the ready, but it was Benjy. He was trying to speak so she knelt next to him.
“Evacuation procedure,” he forced out through gritted teeth even as the light in his eyes dimmed. “Buses out back—” His flaccid hand fell away from her ankle and his head slumped.
She checked for a pulse and there was none. Rising she put a shot through his head in case he was going to turn before she spun on her heel and ran to the opposite end of the hallway, which had a view of the rear of the mansion where the loading dock was. Sure enough three Rosewater school buses sat there in a line, pointing down the service road, which she knew came out on a fairly big road. To get to the town proper a driver would have to go left and eventually they’d reach the main road, which she guessed was now clogged with infected. If the person turned right they’d have a clear shot north.
Running downstairs so fast she was afraid she’d fall, she ignored the questions from those who’d waited and ran into the dining room where she found Lally’s bus driver groggy but awake. “Can you drive a school bus?” she demanded.
He eyed the blaster in her hand. “What is this, a joke? Of course I can.”
“Can you hotwire it if necessary?”
“Yeah.”
“The infected are coming,” she said simply. “It’s time to evacuate this place. There are three school buses out back. If you have anyone else here who can drive one, grab him, but get the hell out there. I’m going to sound the alarm and I’m guessing there’ll be a mad panic so take as many as you can and then go, understand?”
“What about Lally?”
“She turned and killed Jonny sometime during the night. She’s dead now —I shot her.”
He blinked but accepted the grim news without protest. “Where am I going?”
“North. There’s supposed to be a big refugee camp near Glastine. You’ll have to figure it out because there’s no damn time.” She dragged him out of his chair by the elbow and hustled him to the kitchen. “Out there, bus, go.”
Pivoting, she ran to the office, where there was a central com she knew would broadcast to the entire mansion and the grounds. Old Mr. Fafield, Jonny’s father, had enjoyed issuing orders to his staff that way. She stood behind the big desk and took a deep breath before activating the com. She whistled sharply into it to get attention and then said in as calm a voice as she could manage, “This is not a drill. The infected are on their way from the barricade and you must evacuate. There are three buses out back waiting. Don’t try to save anything, just run. Jonny’s dead and this place is over as a sanctuary. Run for your lives.”
Outside the office door she heard screams and the sounds of people running.
Straightening her spine she ventured into the chaos. She tried to direct traffic in the hall, to get people to go to the service entrance where the buses were waiting but there was so much panic no one listened. Abandoning the effort as useless, she went to check the kitchen, finding Devora huddled inside one of the big pantries. She yanked the other woman out of the space and dragged her in the direction of the exit. “The infected will find you in there and then you’re done for. You’ve got to get on the damn bus and hurry. I told the driver to leave as soon as he had enough people.”
From the front of the house she heard blaster fire and the eerie moans and cries of the infected, signaling the swarm had arrived. Moving faster, she got Devora outside, to see the first bus close its doors. Moving fast, she and Devora ran to the vehicle, pausing on the way to grab a crying child sitting forlornly on the grass. Tamsyn thrust the toddler into Devora’s arms. “Your job to take care of her now.” They got to the bus and Tamsyn pounded on the door.
The driver opened it and Tamsyn shoved Devora onto the first step. As soon as she saw the other woman was safe, Tamsyn fought her way out of the queue of people struggling to get onto the bus behind Devora. The driver closed the door, the hydraulics of the bus overcoming the resistance of the desperate people trying to get on. He revved the engine and accelerated out of the yard..
Tamsyn reached the corner of the house and spared a second to look back. The first bus was well away and the second had begun to move. She hoped they’d make it. The third was surrounded by infected and she feared the vehicle would be swamped. She glanced at the blaster in her hand but it wouldn’t do any good against such a mob. “May the Lords of Space protect you,” she said and she turned and fled.
