The horde crests the hill behind us. They don’t slide. They tumble, a mass of limbs and teeth rolling down.
“Faster,” he says.
We hit the fence. No hole. Too high.
“Climb.” He laces his fingers together, making a stirrup. “Now.”
I step into his hands, and he heaves me upward. I grab the mesh, rust biting into my palms, and scramble over the top, dropping to the other side with a heavy thud that jars my head.
Shit. I see stars burning behind my eyes and rub them, the pounding getting stronger.
Slowly, my vision clears, and I spot Julien halfway up the fence.
A hand grabs his ankle.
The flannel zombie. Its gray fingers are clamped around Julien’s boot, dragging him down. Beige teeth snap inches from his calf.
“Julien!” I scream, grabbing my knife.
He kicks out, his other boot connecting with the thing’s face.Smack.The grip loosens. Julien climbs up, vaulting over the top just as three more slam into the fence.
He lands beside me, chest heaving, sweat cutting tracks through the grime on his face.
“Move,” he wheezes, pointing deeper into the woods.
We don’t wait to see if the fence holds. My chest heaves, ribs protesting against the constraint of my own skin, as the zombies do the same, but while the rattling behind us fades, the one in my head doesn’t.
“This way.” Julien veers right, dodging a low-hanging branch.
I follow his gaze to a treehouse jammed between a triad of thick pines about twelve feet up.
“Move.” He shoves me toward the trunk where wooden slats are nailed in a crooked ladder.
I grab the first rung. Damp, slick with moss. I haul myself up, boots slipping, splinters digging through my palms. My arms scream, trembling with exhaustion, but I force myself upward. One rung. Two. Don’t look down. Don’t look back.
I scramble over the lip of the platform and roll onto it, catching my breath. Julien lands beside me a second later, silent despite his size. He kicks the trapdoor shut and slides a rusted bolt into place.
Darkness swallows us, save for thin slivers of afternoon light cutting through gaps in the plank walls.
I drag air into my lungs in ragged, burning gasps, willing my head to calm down. Julien sits with his back pressed against the wall and eyes closed. His chest rises and falls in a heavy, rhythmic cadence. Dirt streaks his jaw, and a fresh scratch bleeds on his neck.
The adrenaline crash hits hard, the high evaporating to leave behind the cold, jagged reality.
We’re trapped. And he…
He saved my life, again, threw himself into a horde to buy me seconds, but the sting of being an afterthought, a charity case he’s burdened with, just a way to prove he meant it, throbs harder than my concussion.
I wipe sweat from my forehead, smearing grit across my skin. My eyes trace the line of his jaw, the tension held there even in exhaustion.
He cracks one eye open, catching me staring. “They’re not following,” he rasps, voice wrecked.
I look away, fixating on a knot in the floorboards. “You sure?”
“Stopped at the fence.” He shifts, wincing as he stretches a leg out. “But there could be more on this side.”
“Yeah.”
He watches me. I can feel the weight of his gaze, heavy, searching for… what? I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs to create a wall.
