Dog Blood

and squeezes out through the gap. We take turns to follow him, impatiently standing in line like we’re waiting for a piss. The fighter in front of me has a wide belly and backside, and I can’t see him getting through. I’ll be damned if I’m going to get stuck in here behind him. I push him to one side and climb past, knowing I’ll be long gone before he gets outside, if he gets out at all. I throw my backpack down, then force myself through the narrow window frame and drop down into a flower bed overrun with brambles and weeds. A pile of waste and emaciated corpses cushions my fall. I quickly get up, swing my pack back onto my shoulders, and start to run. Won’t be long now before they…
    “Oi, Danny!”
    Who the hell was that? My heart sinks when I look back and see Adam hopping after me with his ski-pole walking stick, his useless, misshapen, badly broken left foot swinging. I found this poor bastard trapped in his parents’ house a few days back, and I haven’t been able to shake him yet. He can hardly walk, so I could leave him if I wanted to, but I stupidly keep letting my conscience get the better of me. I tell myself that if I get him away from here he’ll be able to kill again, and anyone who’s going to get rid of even one more of the Unchanged has got to be worth saving. I run back, put my arm around his waist, and start dragging him away from the building.
    “Thanks, man,” he starts to say. “I thought I-”
    “Shut the fuck up and move.”
    “Oh, that’s nice. What did I ever-”
    “Listen,” I tell him, interrupting him midflow. “They’re coming back.”
    I pull him deep into the undergrowth behind the office building. Even over my hurried, rustling footsteps and although the canopy of leaves above us muffles and distorts the sound, I can definitely hear another aircraft approaching. Whatever’s coming this time is larger, louder, and no doubt deadlier than the helicopter that was here before.
    Adam yelps as his broken ankle thumps against a low tree stump. I ignore him and keep moving. His leg’s already fucked; a little more damage won’t matter.
    “Sounds big,” he says through clenched teeth, trying to distract himself from the pain. I don’t respond, concentrating instead on putting the maximum possible distance between me and the office. Other people run through the trees on either side of me, illuminated by shafts of sunlight that pour through the odd-shaped gaps between leaves, all of them passing us. The noise is increasing, so loud now that I can feel it through the ground. It must be a jet. Christ, what did I do wrong to end up saddled with a cripple at a time like this? Maybe I should just leave him here and let him take his chances? I look up, and through a gap in the trees I catch the briefest glimpse of the plane streaking across the sky at incredible speed, so fast that the noise it makes seems to lag way behind it.
    “Keep moving,” I tell him. “Not far enough yet-”
    I stop and hit the deck as soon as I hear it: the signature whoosh and roar of missiles being launched. Adam screams in agony as I pull him down, but we’ll be safer on the ground. There’s a moment of silence-less than a second, but it feels like forever-and then the building behind us is destroyed in an immense blast of heat, light, and noise. A gust of hot wind blows through the trees, and then dust and small chunks of decimated masonry begin to fall from the sky, bouncing off the leaves and branches above us, then hitting the ground like hard rain. The thick canopy of green takes the sting out of the granite hailstones. The shower of debris is over as quickly as it began, and now all I can hear is the plane disappearing into the distance and both Adam’s and my own labored breathing. He sits up, struggling with his injuries. Crazy bastard is grinning like an idiot.
    “Fuck me,” he says, “that was impressive.”
    “Impressive? I could think of other ways to describe it. If you’d been any slower we’d have had it.”
    “Whatever.”
    He leans back against a tree, still panting heavily. We should keep moving, but the idea of resting is appealing. The Unchanged won’t come back here for a while. Even here in the shade the afternoon heat is stifling, and now that I’ve stopped, I don’t want to start walking again. I give in to temptation and lie back on the ground next to Adam and close my eyes, replaying the memory of today’s kills over and over again.

2
    WE KEEP