Page 28 of My Undead Love Life

“No kidding,” Oxi muttered. His voice sounded more alert than I’d heard it before. And I’d heard him talk when we were running for our lives in a tunnel yesterday.

It wasn’t comforting.

“Shh.” Luck leaned closer to me. I felt his breath brush against my ear. “Everything's fine, Spencer, okay? We need to stay quiet.”

I nodded.

Carefully, he removed his hand from my mouth. Cold air rushed across my damp lips, and I had to press them together to keep any sound from slipping out.

I moved my hands over myself and noticed then that I was lying between him and Mad, beneath the blankets they'd put over me. Their body heat lingered faintly in the freezing room, trapped under the layers of fabric, and it was the only thing keeping the chill from settling back into my bones. The concrete beneath the sleeping bags was hard enough that I could feel it through everything, but compared to the open tunnel, this felt like luxury.

I couldn’t even remember falling asleep.

Outside the closet, a low thump echoed through the tunnel, followed by silence.

I didn’t hear the groans of the undead anymore. That should have been comforting. It wasn’t.

“I wish we had some windows,” Mad muttered under his breath.

“And let it see us?” Luck whispered back.

“At least we'd know what we're waiting out.”

“And it'd know exactly where we are,” Luck scoffed.

Scratch.

The sound came again. Whatever was out there dragged its claws down the metal door, one slow inch at a time.

My stomach twisted violently.

The noise wasn't frantic, like a zombie trying to break in. It felt more dangerous than that. It was patient and curious in a way an animal should not have sounded through a closed metal door. The thought made my skin crawl.

My eyes slowly adjusted enough to make out vague silhouettes in the darkness. Mad sat next to me on one side, one hand wrapped around the handle of his fire axe. He was close enough that I could feel the tension in him. Oxi sat on his other side, his cane sword already unsheathed, the thin blade barely visible in the dark. Luck remained on the other side of me, with his pistol in hand and his shoulder pressed against mine.

Another heavy thump sounded outside before a low rumbling growl came through the door.

I’d heard an infected mountain lion’s roar before, and that had emptied my body of every brave nerve I had ever had. But that sound paled compared to whatever this was. This growl was deeper, rougher, and large enough to make the air in the closet feel smaller. It vibrated through the metal door and sent fear straight into my chest.

“Who knows if whatever that thing is, is infected?” Oxi said quietly. “We might be stuck in here even longer now.”

He had a great point because whatever was outside had stopped scratching. And that made me feel much, much worse.

The silence stretched for a few minutes until a low sniff came from the door. The animal had lowered its head to the crack beneath it. I had a feeling it had caught our scent. Every muscle in my body locked.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my throat tightening around the words. The apology came out before I could stop it. It had been sitting inside me since the moment Keith pushed me away.

I felt like such a burden. I was falling apart, desperately missing Keith. I wasn’t in the right mindset to be surviving and helping to keep others alive. I could still feel the nightmare clinging to me, traces of cold sweat damp against my skin, and the memory of Keith’s face and the way I had been dragged farther and farther from him. All of it haunted me.

To add to that, I must have fallen asleep on the concrete earlier. Which meant they had moved me so I didn’t get hypothermia. It sent another wave of guilt through me. They had tucked me between them, covered me, and kept me warm while I slept through some kind of mental break I couldn’t even remember.

“Thank you for keeping me warm,” I whispered softly.

Scratch.

The sound vibrated through the metal frame and into the floor beneath us as the scratching started again. I could actually feel the vibration from every scrape. The animal wasn't waiting us out. It was trying to take down the only thing separating us from it.

Mad finally answered me, “We promised your man we’d get you home.”