secret_history | November 2nd, 5:55

They heard the child screaming a moment later, as they reached the front of the Canadian Tire. She could only have a small head start on them, but it might just be enough. It only took a fraction of a second to be too late, and Mickey felt her stomach lurch sickeningly at the thought that they might well be too late to save the girl.

Kitty’s father was the first over the turnstiles at the front of the store, and off running in the direction of the screams before anyone else had even had time to clear the barrier themselves. Gracie was close on his heels, followed by Mickey, Randhir and Marco, who had paused only to pick up whatever weapons were closest to hand in case they had to defend themselves from the zombies still prowling the empty mall. Marco still had his axe, and Randhir had snatched two heavy woodden baseball bats from a display rack and tossed one to Mickey as they ran. The others, following a shouted order from Mickey, had stayed behind in the store where they were still in relative safety.

The screams stopped abruptly after a minute or so, and Mickey felt her already-hammering heart skip a beat. They were too late! she thought desperately, but as they raced to the other end of the mall, where the doors gave onto Atwater, there was no sign of Kitty at all. A large pool of blood glistened wetly on the ground, and Mickey easily spotted a place where the little girl must have stepped in the blood and had her feet skid out from under her. Small bloody footprints led away from the puddle, followed by larger, dragging tracks.

“That way!” Marco yelled, and she looked to where he was pointing at a small group of zombies straining to get through a narrow opening that led into the Pharmaprix pharmacy.

John Talbot was already only a few yards away from the zombies when an anguished cry from inside made him come skidding to a halt.

“Daddy! Daddy I’m in here! Daddy, please come get me!”

“I’m coming, sweetheart! Don’t move —stay where you are! We’re coming to get you!”

It was too late to shout a warning, Mickey realized with a sinking feeling. He was too close, much too close, and in his haste to go find his little girl he hadn’t taken a single thing with which to defend himself. Not so much as stick. Gracie was right behind him, shouting almost incoherently.

“John! Look out! No!”

Mickey motioned desperately at Randhir and Marco to go after them. “I’ll go around for her. Just help them!”

She sprinted away, veering sharply to her right and clambering over one of the closed cashier’s desks in an effort to get to Kitty faster. She could see the child partially hidden behind the cosmetics aisle behind a rotating display of lipstick and eyeshadown.

“Daddy!”

Mickey slipped on the counter’s slick surface and toppled head over heels, falling heavily to the floor and acquiring what she was sure was several more large bruises in the process. She scrambled to her feet, hoping fervently that there weren’t any zombies staggering around the pharmacy aisles that she hadn’t yet seen or heard in the midst of all the commotion. She didn’t look back to where she’d left Marco and Randhir, trying not to think about what might be going on out there. She stumbled as she ran —she must be more tired than she’d thought, and the lack of a proper meal in nearly twenty-four hours was taking its toll— and had to catch hold of one of the display racks to prevent herself falling again.

“Kitty! Kitty, are you okay?” she called out. “Come over here, sweetie. We’re going to get out the other side. Come on!”

Kitty was crouched behind the cosmetics display, watching in horrified fascination as the zombies outside slowly turned their attention away from her and toward her parents who had rushed headlong into the path of danger. She was rooted to the spot, seemingly unable to move, and so Mickey took off at a run, meaning to drag her to safety if she had to. Just as she reached the girl’s side, there was a strangled cry from outside. Mickey turned her head in time to see John Talbot trying to pull a zombie aside which had buried its teeth in his wife’s neck.

“Oh, God!” the words burst from her before she could stop them. She grabbed Kitty around the waist and pulled her away, placing herself as a physical barrier between the child and the horrific sight only a few paces away. Kitty squirmed and kicked and screamed for her father, until Michaela clamped a hand over her eyes and held her as tighly as she could, enfolding her in her arms. “Don’t look,” she said, “don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.” She repeated it over and over again, so often that it became a mantra, speaking as much to herself as she was to the child. She didn’t want to know what was happening out there.

“Mickey! Run! Take the kid and go!” Marco shouted at her, sounding much further away than he must have been.

She didn’t wait to be told twice. She picked up the now-unresisting Kitty in her arms, her weapon long since discarded in the interest of speed., and took off in the direction of the far exit of the pharmacy. Kitty buried her head against Mickey’s shoulder, an occasional whimper the only sign she was still conscious. It was harder to get out, encumbered as she was with the girl, but she managed, somehow, throwing panicked glances over her shoulder as though she expected a zombie to jump out at her from thin air at any moment.

She ran, slipping in the same pool of blood she’d noticed before and had managed to forget about in the ridiculously small interval of time that had elapsed since she’d last been that way. She flailed for balance, managed not to fall and not to drop her burden, and kept running. Her lungs were burning already, the sound of her breathing harsh in her ears and blocking out every other noise, perhaps mercifully. Her arms and back were aching by the time she reached the Canadian Tire and was greeted by a host of welcoming arms who took Kitty from her and then pulled her into the store.

She landed on the floor on her hands and knees, breathing hard, her vision oddly blurred. She looked up, dazed, and shook her head, wondering if she’d somehow hit her head and not felt it, reached a hand up to feel the back of her head. It took a few moments before she realized that she was crying.