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“Shhhhh…”

“Don’t shush me. I’m not a―”

The hand that clamped over my mouth stopped me from saying more. The dried blood coating August’s palm gave it a metallic taste. Instinct had me about to throw a backwards headbutt when I heard it too. A rustling in the trees. I nodded to show I got it, August taking his hand away. “An animal?” I whispered, the hope in my voice clear.

August didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. It only took seconds for the rustling to change to crashing through the undergrowth, too loud and too quick to be any animal that might be found around these parts. And there was more than one.

Heart hammering, I brought my crossbow up and leveled it toward the noise. The undergrowth was too thick to see anything yet, but that wouldn’t last. How many was the question that kept repeating in my head? Two? Three? More?

August rounded on me. “Give me my axe?”

“What?”

“What do you expect me to do? Fend them off with my dick?”

“I…” August was already dragging the bag off my back. I did nothing to stop him as he dumped it on the floor and ripped it open. By the time he straightened, they were already streaming out of the trees. Not one. Not two. Not even four. Five of the crazed bastards. That we could see, anyway. There could still be more. And all locked on to us like someone had rung a bell to tell them dinner was served.

I’d seen hundreds of biters during my time in the army, but nothing ever prepared me for the sheer ferocity. When they came at you, they were like an unstoppable wave of teeth and fury.

The trees hadn’t done us any favors, letting them get closer than I would have liked. In a perfect world, I would have been able to take two down with carefully timed shots to the head before they got anywhere near us. But this wasn’t a perfect world, and hadn’t been since before I’d been born. This was a shitty world, where it was kill or be killed, and the weak had no chance unless they stayed inside a community and never left.

August and I moved as one without discussion, backing off into the trees on the opposite side of the road for cover. If there were any behind us, then we were fucked, but one thing at a time. We couldn’t stay in the open; they were too fast.

I loosed a crossbow bolt, and it found its target, right in the center of the male biter’s forehead. One down. Four to go. Zero damage to the crossbow from the crash seemingly.

The next bolt found a target, but only in its shoulder, the biter having moved at the last second. I lost sight of August as the trees swallowed us up. A nearby thud said his axe had found flesh. And then there were no other sounds except for the blood roaring in my ears, the hammering of my heart, and the relentless footsteps of the biters that pursued me.

As I was going backwards and they were going forward, they were gaining on me fast. Turn and run? Too late. One was already launching itself at me. I juked to the side, its fingers grazing my shoulder. Unfortunately, my movement had taken me right into the path of the other, and as its prize, it scored itself a nice big handful of the fireman’s jacket. It might have saved me from serious injury on the road, but here it had proved itself a liability.

No matter how much I twisted and turned, I couldn’t shake it off. The crossbow was awkward at close quarters. Normally, I would have switched to my knife by now, but there hadn’t been time. Either that or the crash had shaken my brains around enough that I wasn’t thinking clearly. I carved myself enough space to lift the crossbow, a single bolt at point blank range achieving what the one in its shoulder hadn’t.

It toppled forwards, the fingers still tangled in my jacket preventing me from doing anything but going with the movement. I fell back, my head rebounding off a tree trunk hard enough to make my ears ring, the dead weight of the biter coming down on top of me and pinning me in place.

Letting go of the crossbow, I put all my physical effort into two things: reaching for the dagger in my boot and trying to free myself from the biter. Maybe it was because I hadn’t prioritized which of those tasks to do first, or maybe they were both too hard given my predicament. Either way, any hope of succeeding was curtailed as the second biter dropped on top to double the weight.

The only thing stopping his teeth from making contact was the corpse between us. Both a blessing and a curse. He slowly crawled his way up my body. A few more seconds and he’d reach the soft skin of my neck, the slightly angled position of the dead biter leaving it as open season. I couldn’t get to my knife. I couldn’t do anything, helpless tears welling in my eyes. Why hadn’t I gotten the damn thing out before now? I knew the limitations of the crossbow. Knew them and had dealt with them hundreds of times before. What made this time different?

I dug my heels into the dirt, trying to force myself backward in the hope the live biter would stay where he was. Or that it might at least slow his progress. Why bother? my subconscious asked. If he’s going to rip out your jugular, what’s the point of a few extra seconds of life?

Because that’s what we do, I answered in my head. We fight, and we keep fighting. No matter how bad things are looking. We fight because you never know what might happen in those extra few seconds of life.

My plan failed, the three of us moving together like a twisted human/biter hybrid. Worse than the action failing was how much effort it had taken out of me, my muscles burning.

The biter had reached mid-chest now, his mouth open and ready in a terrifying rictus. I grabbed hold of his neck, but he was stronger than I was, and he just kept coming.

Ten inches. Less.

A noise came out of my throat that I’d never made before. Half desperation, half battle cry. At least if he eats you, you’ll never have to find out what it feels like to turn. It was cold comfort, but it was something to hang on to.

The worst thing as the teeth inched ever closer was the knowledge that vengeance would never be mine, that this entire trip had been a waste of time. That hurt more than I figured the teeth would.

Chapter Seven

August

If I had to make a list of things I didn’t want to do shortly after coming off my bike and suffering a head injury, taking on a horde of biters would come at the top. Unfortunately, they had zero interest in how my day was going and were more concerned with making theirs better by finding out how I tasted. It was an understatement to say our objectives didn’t align.

I saw Keaton take down the first one with a well-aimed shot to the head before our paths diverged to leave us both with two biters in tow. At least he couldn’t claim that I didn’t share. His were both males, mine a male and a female.