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squashed in her pocket as more of the roof fell, but then she heard a distinct, steady cade nce of breaking wood that took her a moment to comprehend.
    She realized that the floor of the steeple had given way, and that the large bell was careening down the shaft, breaking each wrung of the ladder as it went. It smashed into the floor inside of the church and let out an ominously low, hollow ring.
    “David!” Annie used her left arm to try and pull herself free, but the roof was too heavy on her side.
    “Annie?” asked Laura. “Are you okay?”
    “No, but find David. Make sure Clyde and David are okay.”
    “We’re going to get you out,” said Billy.
    Annie could see their shadows mar the miniscule light that seeped in under the collapsed roof around her. “Go find David first. He was under the bell. Make sure he’s okay.”
    “Go,” said Billy. “See if David’s okay.”
    Annie wasn’t sure who Billy was talking to. She continued to try and slide out from under the roof, but it weighed too much.
    “Is this your blood?” asked Billy, and again she wasn’t sure who he was talking to.
    “Annie, is this your blood?”
    She looked down and noticed for the first time that she was soaked. The pavement below her was wet, and her face was burning hot, a sensation that didn’t seem to make sense to her at the time.
    “Annie, are you hurt?”
    “Yes, for fuck’s sake,” she was frustrated by the seemingly ignorant question as well as with how helpless she felt.
    “Are you bleeding?” asked Billy.
    Was this Dante’s blood, or was it hers?
    “I don’t know,” said Annie. “I guess so.”
    “We’re going to try and move the roof off you,” said Billy. “But I want to make sure it’s not going to make your injury worse.”
    Annie set her hand in the growing, warm pool. She hurt everywhere, but nowhere worse than her shoulder. Her position made it impossible to touch her wound, but she was fairly certain that she’d rather get the roof off instead of waiting around any longer. “Get this thing off me!”
    “Okay, okay,” said Billy.
    Annie braced herself as she heard Rollers gather around the collapsed steeple. They counted down and she cringed as the wood started to rise up. The release of pressure against her was a relief at first, but then she felt her waist being pulled up with it. Her hip was attached to the structure somehow, but before she could cry out in pain her body thudded back down. There had been a piece of wood lodged in her waist, but it slipped free, leaving her contorting in agony as the steeple’s roof was raised.
    “Son of a bitch!” Annie reached to her right shoulder as soon as she was free and found a mess of shredded cloth and blood. Without thinking, she dug her finger into the hole in her shirt and was devastated with pain as it sunk into her open wound. “Fucker!”
    “Oh God,” said Laura, who was standing near the entrance of the church. She had been the one that went inside to check on David, and had now come back out to see her only surviving child bleeding profusely on the pavement. “Annie, stay still.” She turned and screamed into the church, “Clyde, we need you out here.”
    The wrecked partition that had served as a wall around the circle of trucks had been torn by the helicopter that crashed into it. Now they were exposed, and the zombies seemed finally willing to pay attention to them. Their lust for Kim’s corpse had abated, and they turned on the Rollers, enticed by the break in their defenses. Abe led the group that tried to secure the breach, firing into any creature that dared draw near.
    “Is David okay?” asked Annie as she lay in the pool of blood. Abe and the other Rollers increased their rate of fire, and each blast seemed to reverberate in Annie’s mind, causing a swelling pain in her ears and head. Then her stomach heaved and she thought she was going to throw up just before the ground started to spin beneath her.
    Billy knelt beside her