Coming.
Drawn by the engine, the shouting, the frantic scramble of living things. It was as if they could smell us—the panic, the sheer fact of our warm blood pumping through our veins.
I could see them now—not just silhouettes. Faces. What used to be faces. One missing its lower lip, teeth and gums locked in a permanent grin. Another dragging a leg bent the wrong way at the knee, bone white through blackened skin, and it didn’t slow down.
“Faster!” I hissed.
Fiona and Lily threw themselves at the back—totes crashing in, backpacks hurled after them. Hands shaking, fumbling, but moving.
“Almost—almost—” Fiona’s voice was a ragged gasp.
Libby stood at the rear, frying pan raised, body angled toward the street. Jaw set. Knuckles white. Ready to swing. Ready to fight. Not backing up an inch.
“Get in!” I roared.
She turned—
The girls scrambled inside.
The hatch slammed.
Then it came from the side.
Out of the blind spot I hadn’t cleared—the narrow gap between the stoop and the neighbor’s, a space too small for a person to stand in comfortably, but they didn’t care about comfort. They didn’t care about anything.
It launched itself at her.
“Libby—!”
Fingers locked into her arm. Gray. Bloated. The nails torn down to the quick, caked black with dried blood. It yanked—and she flew sideways.
She went down hard.
The pan clattered to the concrete. She twisted, fighting, kicking, shoving at it as it clawed its way over her. Its mouth snapped open and shut—mechanical, relentless—teeth slick with dark, crusted blood, strings of something rotten stretching between its jaws each time they parted.
The smell hit me from six feet away. Sweet and putrid. Rotting meat left in the sun for days.
“I’ve got it—!” she choked, arms shaking as she tried to hold it off, her hands pressed against its chest where the ribcage had partially caved in, her fingers sinking into flesh that gave too easily—
Too risky for the gun. She and the thing tangled together, limbs overlapping—no clean shot.
No shot—
“Hold on!” The words ripped from my throat.
I sprinted. Closed the distance in three strides, adrenaline obliterating everything except the image of that mouth inching closer to her throat.
It had her pinned now. Full weight bearing down, its face inches from hers, jaw working, that wet gurgling sound pouring out of it—not a groan or a scream, something worse. Something involuntary and broken.
A thick bead of dark fluid dripped from its mouth onto her cheek.
I hit it full force.
Shoulder first.
The impact jarred through my body as I drove into it, ripping it off her. Both of us crashed onto the pavement. My elbow cracked against the ground, and the pain radiated upward.
It twisted toward me instantly—faster than the others, fresher maybe—its head whipping around, mouth already open, already reaching—
