Decay (Book 1): Civilization by Linus Locke Page B

Her head snapped back on her neck. Skull fragments and chunks of her brain splattered sickeningly on the concrete as they fell from the hole in her head.
    “I can get to the children if you want to head back,” Bradley said without taking his eyes off of the dead woman.
    “No. I’ll go with you. We are close, so it won’t take long.” He placed a hand on Bradley’s shoulder when he saw the pain that he felt over the loss of a woman neither of them knew. “If we can save those children, then her death won’t be for nothing.”
    The two men slowed down when they heard the gurgling moans of the fiends growing louder as they approached the gas pumps. The super market was on the other side of the station. Inside the small Shell gas station, fiends wandered around in the isles. Keeping low so they wouldn’t be seen, Bradley and Guillermo crept past. With the gas station cleared, they both ran at a dead sprint toward the super market.
    Bradley found that he was surprised how easy it was to make it this distance, and it gave him hope of finding the big gunshot. Most of the fiends that were in this area had gone out to inspect the commotion from just a few moments ago. At the back of the building they found a ladder that went up to the roof. There were marks on the ground from where the woman had been moving a stack of crates to and from the ladder.
    “Hello?” Bradley spoke quietly as they looked around for the children. Swaying gently in the breeze was a large blue tarp propped up as a makeshift tent. A boy about eleven or twelve stepped out from around the tent first, holding a baseball bat defensively.
    He was less than five feet tall. His shaggy brown hair curled up an inch or so as it emerged from the dirty Zoo York hat. The low top Vans on his feet were also beat up pretty bad, and he wore a sweat stained blue shirt with ‘manager’ embroidered on the left breast that must have come from the super market.
    “Hello. We’re here to help you. A woman sent us up here to take you back with us. You’re safe.” Bradley held out his hands to show he was unarmed.
    “What did you do with Danni?” The boy demanded with a stern voice. The fear could be seen in his brown eyes.
    “We didn’t do anything ok. She was attacked, we tried to help her. She told us there were three of you up here, and we needed to get to you.” Bradley kept his hands out as he slowly moved closer to the boy. “We have food and shelter. You will be safe with us.”
    The boy sat the bat down against an HVAC unit and went into the tent. A few moments went by before Bradley could hear the children inside crying. It broke his heart to have to hear them taking the loss of this woman, Danni, so hard. He decided it best to give the children some time. Both men understood that losing someone who had cared for them for this long must be very hard.
    While waiting for the children both men heard the sounds of a car engine coming from the south. The sound only lasted a few seconds, yet it was loud. Almost as if the driver was in a hurry or possibly stuck. They waited silently for a few minutes hoping to catch a glimpse of the vehicle on the road, but they never saw it.
    “Must have come from where the gunshot came from?” Bradley asked.
    “That would be my guess. It looks to be to our advantage. Most of the fiends are moving that way now,” Guillermo pointed out. Several fiends moved below them on their way to find the new noise. He crossed himself and brought his silver crucifix pendant up to his lips. “Just the Lord looking out for us.”
    Over the next couple of minutes Bradley could hear the children moving around as they gathered their meager belongings. They continued to weep softly as they worked. When the boy stepped out of the tent a few moments later, his eyes were red from crying.
    “We’ll go with you then. If it’s ok,” the boy said.
    “Of course, that’s why we are here,” Bradley said with a welcoming smile.
    The other two