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The little boy pointed.

The smoke parted as Jenni looked back. Amy struggling with a zombie that had grabbed hold of her from behind. Her elbow was up under its chin and she was trying to push it back away from her throat. Her eightyear- old daughter, Margie, was still holding onto her mother’s shirt.

“Margie, run!” Amy screamed at her daughter, but the little girl kept held on.

“Oh, my God,” Jenni gasped, unsure of what to do. The kids holding on to her were sobbing for their mother.

As the other zombies neared, Amy made a choice. She turned, grabbed her daughter, and threw her toward the Jenni.

“Run, Margie run! Go with Jenni!” Amy screamed, then the zombies dragged her down.

Jenni screamed in horror, then surged forward, reaching for Margie. She managed to grab the girl’s hair and yank her back away from the zombies.

The little girl was shrieking. Clutching Amy’s children to her, Jenni pressed forward into the crowd. She fought harder, pushing her way through the crowd with renewed vigor.

* * * * * Kevin and Valerie fell back as the zombies continued to swarm the Left Corridor. They were fighting with six other soldiers, but overwhelming numbers of zombies were filling the mall. Kevin ordered them to fall back to a candy kiosk just as the first running zombies appeared. Literally racing past the barricaded soldiers, they dove into the last of the fleeing people from the Left Corridor and began tearing them apart right in front of the doors to the parking lot.

Thomas began firing at them and Kevin motioned for the soldiers to run into the corridor that lead to the food court.

“We’ll exit through the Right Corridor!”

More sprinting zombies appeared.

The soldiers turned and ran.

The only thing that saved them was that the new zombies, ravenously hungry, dove onto the already dying victims to feast.

* * * * * Greta swung her helicopter low for the third time, trying to blow the zombies off their feet as they struggled to get into the mall. Cursing that her helicopter was for rescue and transport only, she wished she had a nice bomb or machine gun.

Below her, the zombies stumbled and fell beneath the wash of the helicopters. But they just kept coming.

* * * * * Travis reached the food court and its thundering waterfall just as Kevin and his men did.

“We have to go out the Right Corridor,” Kevin ordered.

&nb

sp; “It’s blocked!” Travis exclaimed in frustration.

“What?”

“We couldn’t get out!”

The two men stared at each other in shock, then looked back and forth.

Smoke was wafting in from the Right Corridor.

“Fuck, we’re trapped, ” Valerie exclaimed.

* * * * * Jenni and the children were some of the last people to escape the Right Corridor. The fire finally overcame the zombies and began to spread along the walls. It was a food kiosk that finally saved those fleeing. The fire hit it and the oils used to make donuts ignited. The fireball flattened zombies and set them on fire. The flames burned hot and fierce, pushing back the zombies and stopping their pursuit of the people escaping into the food court.

2. Fall to Grace

“Where the hell do we go?”

Travis’ question hung in the air as Kevin’s eyes strayed to the maintenance stairway that snaked up the side of the building toward the skylight overhead. Pointing to metal stairway, Kevin said, “We go up. ”

“To the roof?”