Slow Burn (Book 4): Dead Fire by Bobby Adair Page A

instructions.
    Bubbles pranced up to Nancy and leaned her ear close to Nancy’s mouth. Nancy cupped her hands and whispered. Bubbles whispered back. Nancy told her one more thing and then threw a bony finger into the direction from which the gunshots had echoed. Bluto, the dumb one, and the pee pee dancer bolted up the street. Big, round Bubbles bounded in deer leaps after them.
    Nancy yanked our chain and we followed at a fast walk.
    We’d passed a d ozen or so widely spaced houses, set back in the trees, when Nancy turned off of the asphalt and guided us toward a house where a dozen Whites were dragging their hands across the brick walls, pressing their faces to the windows, tripping over the shrubs, and stomping down the dead flowers.
    Bluto and the dumb White were standing near the curb, looking around at the other houses, but mostly following the movement of Whites around this particular house.
    Nancy took only a moment to assess the situation. She led us across the yard and found a suitable tree at a corner of the garage, looped the length of chain around it, and padlocked our tether in place.
    I was stuck. Again.
    If the Whites’ instincts were right, there were normal people inside with at least one gun, a gun they shouldn’t have fired. Outside, there were more than a dozen Whites, two of those were Smart Ones, and four could follow verbal commands.
    While the feral Whites continued their futile activity around the house, Nancy gathered up her pets and took her time in getting in the ear of each to provide instructions. She had formulated a plan of attack and she was capable of conveying that plan, or so it appeared.
    That was not good.
    It was so not good.
    I racked my brain for a way to warn the people inside the house. They were in more trouble than they knew. I couldn’t yell a warning; to do so would be certain death for me with no guarantee that those inside would hear it, let alone heed it.
    Crap!
    I shuffled my feet and urged my chain gang buddies around to the side of the house, out of sight of Nancy, Bubbles, and the other Whites who were starting to gather in a group near the front door. I looked for a window that I could tap on, but there was nothing. We were on the outer wall of the garage, but not far from a privacy fence made of vertical cedar boards, and not far from the gate in that fence.
    With my free hand, I gripped the chain and pulled hard, trying to take out all of the slack. The Whites connected to me didn’t protest. They let me have my way, apparently willing to accept anyone’s rule. But in the end, the three- and four-foot lengths of chain between each of us didn’t add up to enough chain for me to lay a hand on the latch that opened the gate into the backyard.
    I deflated , but immediately chastised myself. Could I just quit when normal people’s lives were at stake?
    Giving them a warning was something that couldn’t be done. Pushing the limit of my imagination in that moment produced only unworkable ideas.
    I turned my thoughts to escape. I put my bag down, knowing that Nancy would beat me if she saw that I had. But she was preoccupied. I put my effort back into tugging at the loop of chain around my neck and tried vainly to pull it up over my head. It was just too damned tight.
    I knelt down and started rummaging through my shopping bag, looking for anything that might be used to pick the lock, not that I had a ny experience with that. In fact, it was likely an endeavor borne from the desperation of having no other ideas.
    A crash at the front of the house alerted me that Bluto had busted open the front door.
    The Whites howled.
    Time was up.
    Escape was still on the table , but helping those folks in the house was not. That option had just expired.
    There was a muffled scream from inside.
    Lots of noise.
    More gunfire. One shot. Two shots. Three.
    More yelling, words I couldn’t make out.
    A sound from the back of the house caught my attention.
    More gunfire from inside .
    W