Genesis by Michaelbrent Collings Page A

the other end of the street.
     
    He broke right, running to the closest building with windows: a homeless shelter.  He hadn’t even known the place existed, and felt a strange pang of shame at that.  Boise was one of those places where no one seemed to be homeless.  People had money problems – he was one of them – but they always seemed to be in the “pain in the ass but manageable” category.
     
    The place looked like a warehouse, mostly brick and concrete.  But the front was a series of windows.  Which made Ken very uncomfortable.  He remembered the cop, beating against the windows of the car.
     
    How long will those windows hold up if the zombies try to get in?
     
    Beggars can’t be choosers, Ken.
     
    He pulled Dorcas toward the place.  She resisted long enough to pull her arm from around his shoulders, then she was running under her own steam.
     
    The thunder was deafening.  A thousand, maybe ten thousand, pairs of feet hitting the pavement in a cadence that was somehow both chaotic and unified.  Each running at his or her own pace, but all with one purpose: to rend and kill and change .
     
    They got to the front door of the shelter.  Glass, just like the ten-foot windows that fronted the place.  Most of the windows had smears of blood across them, inside and out.
     
    Ken hit the door with his shoulder.  A sign across it said, “We are open for YOU !”
     
    The door shuddered in its frame, but didn’t open.
     
    Locked.
     
    Ken looked inside the shelter.  He didn’t think he and Dorcas had time to go somewhere else.  But he also didn’t want to just break the glass – what would be the point of hiding somewhere with a wide open door?
     
    He saw what looked like a soup kitchen setup: long tables, benches.  Hot food setup in the back.
     
    Everything was in disarray.  Tables upended, benches overturned.  A folding metal chair hung from a sparking bank of fluorescent tubes.
     
    Lots of bodies.  Lots of blood.
     
    Nothing moving, though.  Whatever happened here had remained here.  Had stayed contained.
     
    Not like the now-deafening thunder.
     
    “We gotta get inside,” said Dorcas .
     
    Ken nodded.  He rattled the door once more, as though hoping it might have magically unlocked in the last second.  Then he raised the lug wrench to smash through.
     
    And a man appeared in the wreckage beyond the door.
     
    He looked terrified, worry and grime and blood caking his face and making it difficult to see how old or young he was.  But he had dark hair and a bristly-looking goatee.
     
    “Let us in!” shouted Ken.
     
    He could hear individual footsteps in the thunder, now.  The shelter was slightly recessed from the street, but he had no doubt that the mass of monsters was only maybe a hundred feet away.  Less.
     
    The man in the shelter just shook his head.
     
    “Let us in!” Ken screamed, fear cracking his voice into sharp jags.
     
    Dorcas pounded her good fist against the window beside the door.  “Please, we’ll die!” she screamed.
     
    The man pointed beside him.
     
    There was a little boy there.  Holding the man’s hand.
     
    Ken cursed.  “We can help you!” he screamed.  “We don’t have to do this alone!”
     
    The man shook his head.
     
    Ken raised his lug wrench to smash through the window.
     
    “What about the boy?” said Dorcas .
     
    “I have a family, too,” said Ken.  He looked at Dorcas .  She seemed to be considering his words.  “We’re better off together,” he said.  He brought the lug wrench down.
     
    And stopped it in mid-air.
     
    The man in the shelter had drawn a black, snub-nosed revolver and was pointing it right at Ken’s chest.
     
    Ken looked at the man’s eyes.  Had no doubt the man would shoot him if he continued his swing.
     
    He nodded.
     
    “Come on.”
     
    They would have to outrun the thunder.
     
    He turned.
     
    And saw the first creature come into view past the corner of the building closest to