The next handful of seconds were pure chaos. The soldiers were swarming toward Emily like a single entity. Even the man who'd just entered Jane, had pulled out and rushed over, tugging on his pants to keep from tripping.

Before Gacy's gelatinous body had even stopped jiggling on the floor, Emily was slashing at the restraints at her ankles, accidentally opening cuts on her calves in her haste. But she managed and stood, inserting the knife under the chin of the first soldier to reach her. She left the knife embedded into the soldier's hypothalamus, releasing her hold as the now completely dead zombie face-planted on the cold floor. Frenzied echoes began to bounce around the vast hangar.

In one fluid motion, Emily had turned, grabbed the chair she'd been tied to and slung it around, deftly releasing it into the onslaught of approaching soldiers—which didn't do much damage but gave her the second she needed to bolt toward Jane. She squirmed and gracefully slipped through the groping hands as fire and anger pumped into her stick-thin legs, propelling her forward. The zombies got tangled up, falling over each other as they tried to shift their momentum, sliding and tumbling to the floor, a few of them ending up wedged up against Frank's legs.

Frank was trying to follow Emily's lead, pulling jerkily at his restraints, feeling the skin burn and tear. But he wasn't coming loose.

Emily had reached the table where Jane was laying prone and exhausted, one soldier still holding her wrists. She long jumped at the guy, fingers curled into talons, saliva and hatred bubbling at the corners of her mouth. She was petite but empowered by her mania—a diminutive wrecking ball of furor and violence. She collided with the soldier, knocking him off his feet, his fingernails tearing deep gouges in Janes wrists as he was torn from his post. He hit the ground hard, his head bouncing off the concrete adding a hollow thud to the crescendo of echoes. The next second, Emily was up, raising her boot high over his dazed expression.

The crunch was wet and thick, the face caved inward under her heel as chunky blood and brain matter jettisoned out of fresh fissures.

Jane slid off the table, slumping to the cold floor in a heap. Emily swung her head around just in time to see the mob of soldiers snapping at her heels.

But she was too fast for them.

She bolted toward the opposite end of the hangar toward the open bay-doors where the cover of night was waiting, the rubber soles of her boots squeaking and yelping with each frenzied footfall. She was like a gazelle, bounding across the wide-open space, moving unnaturally fast. The distance between her and the soldiers was expanding as her blood-soaked hair whipped her scratched and bruised back.

Tristen had woken up at some point during the melee and was, once again, crying and settling into a state of deranged shock as the pain from his arm sent horrified signals to his brain.

Franks wrists were severely damaged, skin ripped, raw and bloody but he couldn't manage to get free.

As it turned out, he didn't need to.

A few of the straggling zombies who'd been in Emily's pursuit had abandoned the chase and come back to attend to their prisoners.

"Get these two in the plane and lock it up," one soldier shouted to a few of the others. "Just get 'em secure so we can assess the situation."

"Jane," Frank implored. "Jane, are you alright?" He felt stupid for asking.

She looked over at him, stringy saliva hanging from her lips, gently waving with each affected breath, cum and blood dripping from between her legs. She cracked a half-grin. "Didn't feel a thing," she said.

Then Frank was being cut free from the chair and forcibly pushed toward the dormant airplane on the other side of the hangar. Tristen too was being dragged after him, screaming and whimpering.

"Jane!" Frank shouted as he was led away.

"I'll be okay," she said. "Just stay alive." A few more soldiers had given up on chasing Emily and had come back, lifting Jane up by the arms. Her legs dangled beneath her, struck useless after expending so much effort during her ordeal. She was carried away in the opposite direction.

Frank and Tristen were roughly shoved up a set of metal stairs leading to the cabin of the airplane. It was a Q400 turboprop able to seat about 60 people when it was operational. But this particular aircraft had all the seats removed and three crudely welded sections of bars—mobile cells—positioned every 15 feet or so. They were led to the first cell and pushed inside. One of the soldiers slammed the cage door and secured it with a massive padlock.

"Where are you taking Jane?" Frank asked, grabbing hold of the bars.

"To dinner. Maybe a nice walk on the beach after. I don't like to rush into things. I'll just take my time and try to develop a connection and then take it from there." The soldier stood just outside the bars smiling serenely at Frank.

"Fuck you," Frank glowered.

"Snappy," the soldier said as he turned and walked away, one of his cohorts laughing as they exited the plane.

"What were they doing?" Tristen muttered, hugging his broken arm. "To Jane."

"They're sick," Frank said firmly, smacking the bars.

"But... what..." Tristen dissolved into a shaking heap. "They were raping her."

"They were." Frank confirmed, looking for any way out of the holding cage. Loose bars, a bad weld, anything.

"But... why? She's dead."

"They're dead too. They're all zombies. A new kind of zombie. Like Jane. They want to get her pregnant so they can have more new fucking zombies and take over the fucking planet." Frank's voice was fierce and cutting. "Now are you gonna sit there and cry all over yourself or can you fucking help me out here?" He looked at Tristen equal parts imploring and chastising. The boy's shoulders sank as he sat prone on the floor hugged his knees with one arm, while the other remained pinned against his chest. He took huge, labored breaths.

Frank exhaled. "Jesus, sorry Tristen." He came over to him and crouched down, putting a hand on his quaking shoulder. "I'm sorry. I just need to get Jane. We need to get out of here."

Tristen looked up. "You were ready to let Roy kill me back at the base... but... but now you need my help."

"No, Tristen. We weren't going to let him shoot you."

Tristen rolled his eyes. "Sure, but tell me, how do you plan on getting to Jane?" he sobbed. "This is a jail cell. My arm's broken. We're behind bars and I know they're zombies. I was there when Emily stabbed that fat guy in the heart. But now what Frank? What... what are we going to do? We're trapped in here... they've got Jane out there... who knows where Emily is... probably long gone by now... and they're going... they're gonna... eat us." He slapped his hand down on the floor, pushing himself up a little. "I can't breathe."

"Tristen calm down. Calm down." Frank continued rubbing his shoulder the way he'd seen Jane do earlier

He retrieved his inhaler from his pocket and took a hit. "Calm...? Calm down? Are you serious? Frank... this is not the time to be calm. We are about to get eaten by zombies and you're asking me to calm down?" He paused, as though the words were crowded and stuck in his throat. "Fuck you Frank!" he blurted. "Fuck you. Ever since the moment I met you the world has gone to hell. Everything you touch turns to shit. We were just fine before you guys came to the Center... we were just trying... trying to be nice. We just wanted to... help you guys. Feed you. And now... now...

"I know, I know." Frank gently squeezed Tristen's shoulder.

Tristen slapped Frank's hand away.

"Don't fucking touch me. You're not comforting me. You're not helping. Everyone I know is dead... because of you... because of Emily and Jane. The people I cared about most. Sam, Johnny... the doctors. You're a magnet for shit! You all are! God." He slapped his head into his hand. "I wish I was dead."

"Tristen..." Frank started, letting the words disintegrate in his mouth. He contemplated putting his hand back on Tristen's shoulder but thought better of it. His hand hovered an inch from his trembling form. He didn't want to touch the truth. The ugly honesty that had spewed forth tunneled into Frank's pores, burrowed through skin and muscle tissue, sank into the bone and spread like poison. To touch Tristen now would mean confronting what he'd always known but had spent most of his life suppressing—beating into submission.

The naked understanding that he was worthless. He was awful. He didn't make things better—he made them worse, if not more complicated.

Tristen was right. Frank wasn't helping anyone.

He thought of all the lives that would have been saved if he'd just stayed in his little house on the edge of town jerking off and drinking himself to death. He could have died and come back spent his remaining days ambling around Cheney searching for brains. And there would have been no one left alive to miss him. And even if there had been... he wasn't sure they would have cared. The end result would have been the same. Empty and meaningless.

Why had Jane driven that car into my living room? Why did I have to be the last person alive in that god-forsaken town? Things were fine the way they were. I could clean and organize and plod along—I could keep busy, keep moving.

Jane. The fucking zombie hottie.

This was her fault. But he didn't hate her for it. He couldn't bring himself to hate her for it. He tried, sitting there next to a literally and figuratively broken Tristen staring at the floor, he tried to hate her—but it just wasn't there.

She was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he knew it more clearly in that moment than ever before.

He loved her.

But what had he done to make her love him back? He feigned charm, he attempted clever, he failed cavalier. He hadn't really done anything to protect her. She'd always been the one protecting him. He hadn't even fired a gun since they'd been captured. He was willing to believe things were going to be okay without seeing the blatantly clear signs that things were leaning in the exact opposite direction.

Emily had seen it. Emily had saved him too. Emily was the warrior, the hero. Frank was the damsel in distress. It was Emily that freed herself and attacked the soldiers, in the face of impossible odds, she forged on while he sat impotent and meagre.

She stopped the men from raping Jane.

Emily did. Not Frank.

Jane deserved Emily, not him.

A brief vision of the two girls going down on each other flashed across his mind's eye. He shook his head vigorously and even slapped himself hard across the face.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he screamed at himself.

Tristen flinched at the sudden outburst then stared at Frank for a moment, watching the tears run down into his scruffy beard, watching the man die inside.

But that wasn't enough for Tristen.

Suddenly, Tristen lunged at Frank, grabbing him with his good hand around the neck. They toppled to the floor as Tristen syphoned all his strength into his grip, squeezing as hard as he could, trying to wrap his fingers around Frank's Adam's apple and tear it out.