“They’re fast!” I gasp, risking a glance over my shoulder. Bad idea. Some of them aren’t shuffling anymore. They’re surging, tripping over each other in a frenzy. “How are they so fucking fast?!”
“Save your breath.” His steps falter. “And don’t stop.”
I whirl around. “Julien!”
“Go!” He swings again, cleaving through a skull. “Run!”
The dead converge on him, hands grasping, mouths snapping.
“No. Not without you.” I fidget for my knife. “Please?—”
Two of them stumble, tangling on the ground before regaining their footing, and Julien cuts down another, then pivots, sprinting toward the woods opposite from where he told me to run.
“Fucking run, Dakota!”
He’s leading them away. Using himself as bait.
That stupid, noble asshole.
Is he doing this to prove his point?
My feet move before my brain catches up. I pull the knife from my belt and dash parallel to his path.
He glances back, sees me still in view, and his face contorts with fury. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Following you!”
“I TOLD YOU?—”
“Heard you the first time.”
Half the horde follows him. The rest mill about, seeming confused by two targets. Some start shambling toward me, but they’re slow, scattered.
“Stubborn woman,” he growls as he slows his pace so I can catch up to him.
We weave through the dense pine, dodging trunks. A straggler wearing a flannel shirt and missing an arm pops out from behind an ancient oak directly in my path.
My boots skid on pine needles.
Julien doesn’t even slow down. He shoulder-checks me out of the way, driving his boot into the thing’s chest. It flies backward, crashing into a tree with a bone-jarring crack.
“Don’t stop,” he yells, grabbing my hand again.
“I wasn’t?—”
“Run!”
We burst into a small clearing. The ground slopes sharply downward ahead. Loose shale and jagged rocks.
“Careful!” He tightens his grip on my fingers.
We skid, sliding down the incline, sending a mini-avalanche of rocks clattering ahead of us. It’s loud. Too loud.
“There.” He points to a rusty chain-link fence cutting through the woods at the bottom of the slope. It’s leaning, overgrown with ivy, but it’s a barrier.
“Over it?” I pant.
“Through it if we have to.”
