Bree and I sit up, panting. She clasps onto me just like she used to when it was just the two of us in the mountains. We hold each other close in the center of our group. Everyone’s huddled into the middle of the room, looking out at the windows, where the silhouettes of the crazies bob around, banging their fists against the glass.

We’re completely surrounded.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The sound of pounding is like a drum in my brain. The dogs are barking feverishly.

We’re trapped in the station house. I’m still clutching Bree in the middle of the dark room, sitting on the dusty floorboards. My friends seem frozen with fear around me. The same thoughts must be running through all of our minds: this is the end, this is how we die.

The fear I’m feeling is so consuming, I don’t even realize that Bree is trying to break free from my clasp.

“Brooke,” she’s saying. “Brooke, look, look there.”

Finally I let her go and turn to see where she is pointing. She scrabbles up from me and rushes over to a small hatch in the ground. I have no idea how she managed to see it in the dim light, but the relief as I pull it open and see stairs leading down into blackness is all consuming.

“Quick,” I shout at everyone.

Ryan is the first to rush over. He races down the ladder, disappearing into the blackness. Molly gestures for Bree and Charlie to go next, ushering them in, then dropping down after them. Zeke is quick to follow.

Ben appears, his gun drawn and pointing at the door as he edges backward.

“Brooke, go,” he says. “I’ll cover you.”

But some sense of responsibility is stopping me from saving myself first. It would be like a captain abandoning a sinking ship.

“You first,” I cry out. “Come on.”

I grab him by the shirt and pull him toward the hole. Just as he starts descending, one of the windows smashes. I flinch at the noise and turn to see crazies climbing over one another in their haste to get to me.

“Brooke!” Ben screams up from the hole.

I clamber onto the ladder, pulling the heavy wooden trapdoor down with one hand and fumbling with my gun with the other. I get out four shots at the advancing crazies before disappearing into the hole and yanking the trapdoor firmly into place.

From below, the hands of my friends reach for me. I’m lifted clean off the ladder by Zeke and Ben, and set on the ground. Above us, the crazies pound on the trap door.