Extinction by J.T. Brannan Page A

to one side as a greasy fat man in a suit threw a punch at the back of her head. Without even stopping to consider why he would do such a thing, Alyssa stamped down on his knee. As the leg buckled, the man’s weight collapsing on top of it, Alyssa grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head straight on to her knee. The impact knocked him out cold and his heavy body hit the floor. Alyssa was no stranger to fighting – had discovered years earlier that she was actually good at it – but she knew when discretion was the better part of valour. She couldn’t fight them all.
    You’re a climber
, she told herself.
Climbing’s what you do
. Her eyes tracked upwards, following one of the nearest aisle’s huge central shelving units as it led up towards the plasterboard ceiling, and knew that she had a chance.
Climb!
    She started to push against the crowd, avoiding punches, to her disgust even treading on some of the other shoppers who had fallen to the floor, until she was at the shelves. And then she started climbing, fingers gripping each shelf in turn as she pushed off with her feet, propelling herself upwards.
    Hands started to claw at her from below, and she kicked out – hitting an arm here, a face there – and then she was at the top, pulling herself up on to the shelving unit, which ran from one end of the store to the other.
    Keeping down, she quickly crawled along the length of the unit, ignoring the cans thrown at her by the people below. She saw the staff exit at the rear, saw how it was unobstructed, everyone’s attention on the broken glass of the storefront, and knew that was going to be her way out.
    She felt the shelving unit begin to sway underneath her, and looked down to see a group of women pushing against it, trying to send it smashing down to the floor. Again, Alyssa didn’t stop to ask herself why they would do such a thing; instead, she looked at the shelving unit across the aisle, doing a quick mental calculation. Could she make it? It would be a standing long jump, with no room for a run-up. But it seemed so
far
. Logic told her that it was only two metres – far enough, but not out of the question. But up there, balanced precariously three metres off the ground, the women below screaming for her blood, it seemed much further.
    But what choice did she have?
    And so Alyssa braced herself, did a half-squat, and jumped straight over the aisle. For a few brief, terrible moments she felt she wasn’t going to make it, would miss the shelves entirely and fall to the floor where she would be kicked to death by the angry mob; but then she was there, landing with a shudder on the top of the shelves opposite.
    Her balance was good but she still almost lost it, struggling to compensate for the movement of the shelves that came from her weight hitting the top of it. But she managed to stop herself from falling over the edge, and composed herself. The exit was three aisles over.
    The women below her pointed and screamed, rushing forward to push at the new line of shelves. Other people in the store started to notice her too, the mob mentality taking over, and they joined the women below and started to push at the shelves, for no other reason than that they could. They could take this jumping female down and kick her to death, and nobody there in the shop would judge them for it, they were free from all constraint. Alyssa could feel the violent energy, and jumped, just moments before the shelving unit collapsed.
    She teetered on the top of the next one, getting her balance again, blocking out the screams of the people trapped beneath the crushing weight of the shelves behind her, and then jumped again.
    She was a prime target now, people from all over the store were heading towards her, but it was quieter at the back, most of the crowds were at the front, and those coming for her were hampered by the crush and the obstruction caused by the fallen shelves.
    Looking forwards once more, she made her final jump to