Hellifax by Keith C. Blackmore Page A

through it in an attempt to grab him. Scott jerked away in fright, leaving the dead man hanging over the lip of the broken glass. It reached up and made a swipe for him, but Scott backed out of reach. Even so, the thing wriggled free of the window, the jagged ends of the glass sawing through the abdominal wall of the corpse and spilling thick coils of innards, which sparkled in the sunlight. Gasping in horror, Scott crushed its head like a bad piñata and left it hanging from the sill. He continued running, hoping he’d soon forget that scene, knowing there would be nightmares.
    Onward he steamed, still hearing the concert of voices behind him, needing to get out of sight.
    He passed through the backyards of several houses. In one place, the snow reached his waist almost immediately, grinding him to a halt and sucking the strength from his body. Out of the corner of his eye, dead people, still inside their houses, lurched toward the windows. Dark things he didn’t need to see in greater detail. A moment later he heard them. Their pounding against wood and glass filled his ears. He pawed through the snow, using the bat as a third leg in places, until he reached the next street over. Stopping in the middle of the road to catch his wind, he saw that the lane ran to the left and ended in a T-intersection. He jogged up to it and peeked back the way he’d come.
    Smoke far behind, dead things ambling through its veil.
    Glass broke behind him. Across the street, a zombie rose up from a snowdrift, clumps falling from its shoulders. More shapes surged against the insides of houses. A corpse on the second story of a brown house punched its way through glass and half hung out the window, groaning in Scott’s direction.
    Scott didn’t wait to see what would happen next. He plodded through another driveway and cut through yet another backyard. Cutting moans vibrated the very air and surrounded him. The sinking feeling of having made a very bad mistake entered him. Panic wasn’t far behind. He should never have come to Halifax. A clothesline appeared out of nowhere and almost garrotted him off his feet. He ran over a small swimming pool coated in snow. A tall fence loomed in front of him and, putting his head down, he smashed through it with a horrendous sound of breaking wood. Splintered fragments raked the Nomex. Scott ran past more houses. The land sloped upward, sapping more energy from him.
    He turned a corner and stopped.
    Before him stood a wall of reanimated corpses.
    His breath hitching in his chest, Scott staggered back as the dead turned on him. He dropped his bat and shrugged off his backpack. He unzipped it, groped for the extra magazines, and kept them near his leg. Grimacing, he drew the Ruger from his boot and clasped it in both hands. Deadheads walked toward him, slowed by the cold. He struggled with his breathing and took aim. They were coming in on two sides. The ones before him would expose him to the masses he left behind.
    He was getting fucking tired of running.
    Scott fired into the mob, taking his time and putting down a gimp with each shot as they closed the distance. They were no more than twenty feet away, and even with his heart hammering in his chest, they weren’t hard to hit. The Ruger spat, the sound puncturing the frigid air, and something fell with each muted report. A teenage boy dressed in blue jeans. A bald man in a leather coat. A woman in a business suit. Skulls exploded. One shot missed and Scott adjusted, pulled the trigger, and the gun went dry. He ejected the magazine and slapped in a fresh one, racked it, and took aim at a zombie whose lower jaw dangled from its head like a swinging chin strap. Scott blew its brains out the back of its skull. He shot another through the eye. Three quick shots and three more corpses dropped to the ground. Two shots missed, causing him to bite his lower lip in frustration. Some zombies tripped over the fallen ones and crawled toward him. Scott looked to his