“We fight through,” Ramirez says. “Stay tight. Clear a path.”
A bloated zombie in torn coveralls reaches us first. Ramirez swings his rifle like a club, catching it across the face. Bone crunches. The thing staggers but doesn’t fall. Cameron steps forward, driving his knife up under its jaw. Dark blood sprays as he yanks the blade free, already swinging it toward another.
I move on instinct now, mind detached from body. A female zombie lunges at me, teeth snapping. I sidestep, drive my knife into her temple. The blade sticks, and I kick her back, wrenching it free. Turn to the next one.
We form a tight circle, moving as a unit. Back to back. Weapons dripping black as we fight our way toward the dock, one corpse at a time.
A wolf zombie howls from the treeline.
But they don’t attack. They’re waiting?
“Almost there,” Ramirez pants. “Don’t stop.”
The boathouse door flies open. Rosa emerges, a shotgun clutched in her hands. Behind her, Maya shields Leo with her body.
“Mijos!” Rosa’s voice rings across the space. “Rápido.”
“Get in the boats,” Julien shouts back, cleaving a zombie’s head in two with his machete.
Rosa raises the shotgun and fires. The blast catches a zombie reaching for Cameron, sending it tumbling backward.
We back up onto the dock, wooden planks creaking beneath our feet. Ramirez reaches the boats first, jumping into the nearest one and turning to help Maya, Leo, and Rosa aboard.
“Get the other boat,” Julien tells Cameron. “Fast.”
Cameron nods once, vaulting into the second boat.
I block a zombie’s grasping hands with my forearm before driving my knife into its eye.
Ramirez’s engine roars to life. More zombies pour onto the dock, wood groaning under their combined weight. The wolf zombies hang back, watching, as if directing the assault.
“Take off!” Julien shouts to Ramirez. “We’ll follow!”
“Don’t you dare die!” Rosa calls as their boat drifts away from the dock.
Cameron’s boat idles at the end of the pier, ready for us.
Sienna, Julien, and I retreat step by step, blades flashing in the growing light. My arms burn with exertion. Blood—both mine and theirs—slicks my hands, making my grip slippery on the knife handle.
The dock narrows at its end. We’re running out of space to retreat. Zombies crowd forward, moaning, reaching. Behind them, a wolf zombie rises to its full height, head tilted.
“I’ll go last,” Julien says. “Get in.”
I jump, landing hard on the boat’s bottom. Sienna follows a heartbeat later. Cameron guns the engine, and the boat lurches.
“Julien!” I scramble to my feet, reaching.
He swings his machete one final time, then leaps. The boat’s already moving, creating a gap that shouldn’t be crossable, but—thank fuck—he makes it, barely, his torso landing on the edge while his legs land in the dark water. I grab fistfuls of his shirt, pulling with every ounce of strength I have left. Sienna helps, and we’re able to haul him aboard as Cameron steers us further from the dock and hungry zombies.
One of them follows, launching itself after us with a splash.
“Go, go, go!” Sienna urges Cameron.
The engine roars louder. We shoot across the lake’s surface, spray flying up around us. At the lake’s edge, the wolf zombies prowl before hunching and galloping away as light breaks across the horizon and dawn spills gold on the water, illuminating everything.
I collapse against Julien’s chest, lungs burning, muscles screaming.
“She’s gone,” I whisper. “They’re all gone.”
