Page 9 of My Undead Love Life

Another corpse grabbed for my jacket through the crack in the subway door. Rotten fingers scraped for me. The touch nearly made my stomach turn.

I slammed the butt of my rifle into its skull hard enough to crack bone. The impact jolted painfully up my arms. Teeth shattered across the subway floor while the corpse crumpled backward into the others pressing behind it.

More immediately climbed over it.

The train car shook violently beneath the growing horde outside. Metal screamed around me in long, tortured groans as bodies hurled themselves against the walls.

Somewhere deeper in the tunnel, hundreds more undead groaned in hungry unison, the sound echoing closer and closer like a tidal wave moving underground.

Sweat rolled down my spine despite the freezing air. Every breath tasted like rot and gun smoke.

Still, I kept firing. Because every second I stayed alive was another second Spencer got farther away from this nightmare.

My pulse hammered hard enough that I could feel it in my teeth. Beneath the ceaseless roar of gunfire and the unearthly shrieks of the undead, I felt every frantic beat of my heart pounding in my head.

The regret that clawed through my chest was more unbearable than my fear. I’d sent Spencer away with three complete strangers—three men.

Sure, they’d seemed capable enough. Skilled enough to survive. Hell, they’d charged headfirst into a subway tunnel full of zombies to save two people they didn’t even know. But none of that stopped the sick feeling twisting in my stomach.

I’d still handed the love of my life over to three strange men in the middle of the apocalypse.

What the hell was wrong with me?

A zombie lunged through the broken window beside me as I backed farther into the subway car. Its teeth snapped inches from my face, rancid breath washing over me hard enough to make my eyes water.

I fired twice into its chest. The bullets punched through rotted flesh with wet thuds, barely slowing it down. The third shot finally tore through its skull. Bone and blood exploded across the subway wall before the corpse collapsed halfway through the window frame.

What if those men hurt her?

Another shot cracked through the tunnel.

A corpse dropped.

What if they abandoned her the second things got difficult?

Another shot.

Another body hit the floor.

What if Spencer tried to come back for me?

The thought nearly made me sick.

Because she would.

Spencer would carve her way through an entire horde if she thought there was even the slightest chance I was still alive.

“No,” I muttered hoarsely as I fired into the crowd forcing itself into the subway car. “Don’t come back. Please, don’t come back.”

Smoke burned my eyes. Sweat dripped down the side of my face while the zombies shook the train car violently. They clawed over the seats toward me, slipping on shattered glass and corpses as they came.

Every pull of the trigger felt wrong without Spencer beside me.

Since the very moment I met her, it had been us. Every supply run. Every fight. Every narrow escape. Spencer had always been at my back with that katana in her hands and murder in her eyes anytime something got too close to me.

I could practically see her now, her red hair with the pretty white streaks sticking to her face from sweat, jaw clenched in concentration, blade slick with blood while she yelled sarcastic comments at me in the middle of life-or-death situations.

“On your left, Key…your other left.”