Another Zombie Apocalypse Tale: Part 19
Three Weeks and Two Days Since the Apocalypse
The seven from The Brood closed in on us; gruesome grins stretched across their faces and malice gleamed in their eyes. Despite my indignation, fear stole the warmth from my blood and the steel from my bones, leaving me cold and my limbs shaking. I braced to attack. A man raised a golf club and swung. I ducked out of the way, my heart hammering hard against my chest.
A barrage of jeers erupted from the crowd, and my hate returned for them all in full force. Heat exploded under my skin; I wanted to kill every one of them. They were worse than the dead that hungered for my brains.
The golf club man swung at me again; a high, arching swing that opened up his abdomen to me. I lunged forward, thrusting the machete into the soft tissue of his stomach. The blade sunk easy and deep. Golf Club Man went silent and still. His mouth opened and his eyes, wide with disbelief, found my face. The crowd roared with laughter, booing, and crude comments. I didn’t have a moment to think about what I’d done, as a hand clamped down on his shoulder and shoved him aside.
A bigger man with a hatchet took his place, leering down his crooked nose at me. He swung the hatchet. I jumped back. My foot caught on something and I fell. A corpse broke my fall, wet and slimy underneath me. The hatchet man loomed over me and raised his weapon, then his gaze flicked up.
His eyes widened as a figure leaped over me and tackled the man. The two went down, and I scrambled over and pinned down the man’s arm that held the hatchet. Allen was atop the man, stabbing the knife into his neck. The man’s grip loosened, and I pulled the hatchet free. I passed it to Allen as we stood, not allowing myself to look at the blood coating his hands.
A glint of metal shone in the air.
“Look out!” I shoved Allen aside. A blade cut the air where he’d been standing. I spun toward the man and dove toward him without thinking. He let out an oomph when I collided with him. I rammed my knee into his groin. He went still and silent, air stuck in his throat, then he hissed, grabbed me by the back of my neck and tossed me across the street. I hit the ground hard, rolling side over side, coming to rest with a smack against a light pole to my rib cage. Fire exploded up my chest and I couldn’t breathe, let alone move.
The crowd screamed and yelled. The noise hung in the muggy air; dense with the metallic taste of blood and pungent scent of decay. In my peripheral, Beckett punched a man, then ducked away from the swing of a dual-blade axe from another man, only to be brought to his knees with a baseball bat to his back.
Even if Kimber and Marianne were successful in finding Elsie and Myra, they’d be preoccupied with dealing with Myra’s broken leg and whatever injuries Elsie had, and then getting them as far away from here as possible.
Grand words strung together to make an endearing and rebellious speech wouldn’t save us. None of these people cared whether we lived or died. The world had ended, and with it, the sensibility of not being an asshole to other people.
Get up, Kamikaze, I scolded myself, though the voice sounded suspiciously like my sister Ava, You’re not dead yet.
Gravel bit into my palms as I pressed into the ground, gritting my teeth against the pain in my ribs, pushing myself to my knees. I reached for my machete.
A boot came out of nowhere, kicking the weapon away, and connecting with my wrist bones. A brief cry escaped me before the attacker grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me to my feet. I tried to scratch at my attacker. They ignored my nails digging into their arm, and they held a large, curved blade to my throat. The sharp edge cut into my skin, and my body instinctively stilled, muscles freezing in place. Blood trailed from the wound, and my pulse raged in my ears.
This was it.
Beckett and Allen were on their knees next to each other, their faces beaten and bloody, defeated. A single man stood beside them, the blunt end of the hatchet resting against Allen’s shoulder, the blade near his neck; a threat to keep the both of them compliant.
It was over. We were dead.
“Well, well,” boasted the Grinning Man. “I should let you all go for that show alone. I mean, this guy—” He gestures to Beckett, a wide grin contorting his face. “—took down three of the champs without issue. I’d invite you…” His words faded as a chorus of moans arose, accompanied by the shuffling beat of footsteps. Hundreds of footsteps.
The man holding me up by my hair didn’t loosen his grip, but as he turned to survey where the noise was coming from, the blade eased away from my neck. I was too stunned to attempt escape. Even the Grinning Man and the crowd had fallen to a hush as the moans and shuffling thump of footsteps grew into an eerie symphony.
From the darkness down the street, a lone runner came into view. My heart leaped; the curly head of hair was recognizable. Then my heart seized in my throat as the mass of limping, wriggling, and lurching bodies took shape from the darkness.
The man’s grip on my hair loosened and I dropped to my knees, staring at Mario leading a horde of dead our way.