“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Joe said.
Willow glanced back at me, her determined expression unwavering. “Ready.”
I said nothing. Redirecting an entire horde was a foreign concept to me, and I wasn’t entirely sure it would work. Especially not once the Creepers got wind of our scent. Neither could I willingly agree to ever be ready to send Willow headfirst into danger.
Together, both trucks pulled onto the road, Davey taking the lead. As the stench of the dead grew more pungent, I began spotting stragglers dragging themselves along the crumbling road. Each Creeper we passed fixed us with its milky gaze and I found myself checking each rotten face, searching for familiar features, and thankfully finding none. Soon, a noise, much like the distant roar of a rock concert, began to vibrate through the air around us, just the tail end of the horde came into view.
Ahead, Davey swerved his truck left and Joe followed suit, bringing us smack dab against the wall of walking dead. The Creepers immediately turned their attention to us, growling and snarling as they clawed, some even throwing their bodies against the side of the truck. I squinted into the distance, trying to locate the other end of the traveling mob, only there appeared to be no end in sight. Bodies remained tightly compacted as far as the eye could see, shoulder to shoulder as they shuffled slowly along the road.
We continued inching along beside the horde, the sounds of the dead growing immense and unnerving. Dead eyes watched us through the windows, decaying hands pawed at the truck, the Creepers close enough that we could see each torn fingernail, each shattered tooth and every shard of broken bone protruding from their rotting flesh.
The sound of screeching tires had me tearing my gaze away from my window. Up ahead, Davey’s truck was crawling in Creepers and weaving dangerously in and out of the horde. Flooring the gas, Davey plowed into the center of the road, slamming on the brakes and dislodging the dead. Following closely behind him, Creepers were flung onto our truck, some managing to grip hold.
Willow released a shaky breath and I reached for her, squeezing her arm, while my other hand clenched tighter to the pistol in my grip.
“When I stop, we’ll need to get out of sight,” Joe said. “Xavi’s team is gonna be makin’ all sorts of noise to keep the horde moving in the right direction. After that, it’ll be our job to get rid of the stragglers.
“Like that one,” he continued, pointing to one of the Creepers holding fast to the plow. Bald, with sunken, hollowed features, its eyes were little more than shriveled grapes inside concave sockets. “That motherfucker is staring at me like my number is up and he’s the grim reaper come to collect. He’s the first to go, ya’ hear me? And that bastard is mine.”
We continued on in silence until the clear sky ahead exploded in color—a cloud of orange smoke shooting straight into the atmosphere. “That’s our cue,” Joe said, slowly bringing the truck to a stop and cutting the engine. “Mountain pass is up ahead; Xavi’s team should be threading them through it like a needle. Hopefully the ugly fuckers’ll just keep on goin’.”
“And if they don’t?” Willow asked.
“Like I said before, then we’ll be killin’ whatever’s left by hand.”
As soon as we’d stopped, the Creepers began to crawl over one another in an attempt to get to us until they covered us completely, their wriggling bodies pressed tightly to the truck, darkening the interior. Engulfed entirely in living death, the truck rocked to and fro, as the growling and groaning intensified outside, echoing around us until it was all I could hear.
As the tension thickened to unbearable levels inside the cab, Joe began to mutter what might have been a prayer. Willow, though she tried to appear unaffected, was trembling slightly. Leaving the pistol on the seat beside me, I wrapped both my arms around her, holding her tightly to me.
A loud boom in the distance caused everyone to jump; the Creepers crowding the truck appeared to pause and turn toward the noise. “Trigger one,” Joe whispered. “Everyone in the back—out of sight, out of mind, and all that.”
“Willow,” I whispered, shaking her arm. “Willow, come on, get back here.”
Still trembling, Willow climbed into the back and Joe followed, the three of us sinking to the floor, crouched on our knees.
Bodies continued to slam against the truck, groans and growls renewing with vigor. We sat there, uncomfortably crouched, barely breathing for what felt like forever, until another explosion rang out in the distance.
Joe’s wide eyes clashed with mine.Trigger two,he mouthed.
Slowly—excruciatingly slowly—the bodies covering the truck began to thin. Light filtered inside the cab once again.
“It’s working,” Willow whispered. “It’s fucking working.”
We remained crouched, merely listening to the horde as they moved around us. The truck still rocked as bodies continued to bang against us. Another thirty minutes passed by in agonizing silence when a third explosion shook the earth.
“Time to finish this shit,” Joe said, maneuvering himself back into the driver’s seat. Pulling a shotgun from the overhead gun rack, he reached for the door. “Hardly any out there now—should be easy pickings.”
As Willow moved to follow suit, I grabbed her arm, holding her still. “Logan, I’m going to be okay,” she said, taking my face in her hands. “I promise.”
My nostrils flared. My breath sped up. I grabbed her face and kissed her hard on the mouth, brutally stroking her tongue with mine. She kissed me back with equal measure, breaking away far too soon. Breathing hard, and with a look of sheer determination on her face, she pushed open the door and jumped headfirst into the fray.
Climbing out of the truck behind her, I found myself momentarily frozen, blinking against the harsh morning light. The sounds of death sang loudly from every corner of the highway—the whistles of sharpened blades slicing through the air, the grunts and groans of exertion, the inhuman growls of the dead, while sweat and rot made the otherwise cool air feel hot and heavy and stinking of smells far worse than the mind was capable of conjuring.
All around me small battles were being waged—Britta stood on the hood of her truck taunting Creepers, distracting them while Davey, wielding a gleaming machete, beheaded them from behind. Headless bodies littered the ground surrounding their truck, and a short ways away, a pile of heads was quickly amassing. Joe was even farther out, closer to the tree line, swinging his ax in large rolling sweeps each time a Creeper dared get too close, leaving each of his would-be attackers in literal pieces. Willow—only a few yards from me—had gotten straight to work, gripping the closest Creeper by its stained and tattered jacket and rapidly striking its temple with her blade. It slumped upon impact and Willow promptly released it.
Two Creepers had taken notice of my descent from the truck, their heads swiveling around, their bodies following as they began stumbling toward me with raised arms and snapping jaws. A blade in each hand, I lunged for the first, piercing its neck with one blade while sending the other into the side of its sunken skull. Pulling my weapons free, I ducked and spun away from the grasping hands of the second Creeper, reemerging behind it, giving it the same treatment as the first—one blade to the neck, and one to the skull.
Looking for Willow, I found her fighting farther down the road, furiously slashing and stabbing. I fought my way toward her, taking out another three Creepers before reaching her. She acknowledged my arrival with only a brief nod and then we were back-to-back, both of us fighting in tandem, fighting until my muscles burned and every breath felt like a flame-filled gasp; until sweat flung like rain from my sopping skin.
