“Pssh. If I ever had any heart, I don’t anymore. The zombies may as well have eaten it.”
“I’ve seen it firsthand,” she said.
I walked on, rolling my eyes at her.
She continued, “Look, you can’t let all this make you cold and hard, like all this ice around us. So life dealt you a horrible hand. You gotta learn to deal with it, without losing yourself in the process.”
“I’ve lost so many people I cared about.”
“So have I. Matter fact, so have many of the people you talk to.”
“It’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. Being thrown into a zombie apocalypse isn’t fair. In spite of everything, we’re survivors.”
“That’s the thing. I’m always just surviving. How many more near-misses can I actually survive?”
“You’re here for a reason,” Asia said.
“So many people are dead, lost in the madness that surrounds us every hour, every minute, every second, every day. How’s a person supposed to stay sane in a world like this? I can almost forgive Z for being a nut-job. This is enough to make anybody go crazy.”
“This zombie war has altered me at such a deep level, but I stay sane because it’s what I have to do. Yes, I’ve been through hell, but I’ll fight and wade through more oceans of fire if that’s what it takes to get to the finish line.”
“That’s just it, Asia. It’s beginning to feel like there is no finish line—not with all this evil on the loose.”
“There is, Dean. It’s just a marathon, not a sprint, that’s all.”
“Then I have no choice but to run it, I guess. I just hope I don’t snap.”
“Give yourself some credit. You’ve lived through unimaginable horror and heartbreaking loss. You might get bent, but you’re not gonna snap. You, Dean, have what it takes to survive.”
“And what’s that?”
“Well, for starters, perseverance, a positive attitude, and a strong will to live.”
“A positive attitude? I feel numb, if anything.”
“From anguish, agony, and despair comes inner strength you never knew was possible. I think I read that on a fortune cookie once or something. But anyway, with that comes the will to survive and fight the demons who threaten to devour you, even if it’s bite by bite.”
“Yeah, I know about inner strength. I’ve had to tap into it many times. But maybe mine is wearing down. Suddenly, everything hurts so much. My heart won’t stop aching.”
“You’re still grieving over Jackie.”
“If I don’t stay on top of my game, if I make just one mistake, it could cost someone their life, either me or someone else. That’s a lot of pressure.”
“So you’re worried about slipping up?”
“I’ve been having horrible dreams, waking up with my hands shaking.”
“You’re under a lot of stress, so it’s understandable. My gosh, look at what you’ve been through, what we’ve both been through. We’re dealing with zombies, and if that isn’t bad enough, we’re in the middle of a war, fighting for turf.”
“Sometimes I wonder why we’re even here. My brother and sister and I should be trying to get to the island, not fighting that lunatic Z for a city we won’t even end up staying in.”
“You guys are emotionally involved with Max.” She let out a long sigh. “I am too. I went on a mission with him, and he totally won me over. He has such a charismatic personality, this charm, and an obvious ability to lead. What I find the most fascinating is how much he cares about the people he’s taken under his wing.”
“But we’re not his people. We’re only here till the weather breaks, and we’ll be leaving soon.”
“Is Val onboard with that?”
“Of course she is. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Because she seems to love it here.”
“She’ll come with us. That’s been our plan all along.”
“Are you so sure?” she questioned.
“Why wouldn’t she? She’s our sister, and she had family back on that island too.”
“Obviously, you’ve been so busy that you haven’t noticed.”
“Noticed what?”
She blinked. “How close Val and Max have become.”
I cocked a brow. “What are you saying?”
“I think you know exactly what I’m saying.”
I swallowed hard, and I raised a brow. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“Well, I’ve got eyes...and I’m very observant.”
“You think something’s going on between them?”
Asia met my gaze directly. “I know it is, Dean.”
“But he’s too old for her.”
“Only by fifteen years.”
“Does Nick suspect anything?” I asked.
“Your brother is much too self-involved. He’s too busy in his own little world of Claire and zombies.”
I shook my head in shock, then sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to free the unsettling thoughts from my head. “I had my suspicions. Even still, they’ve hid it quite well.”
“Not from me,” she said. She stopped abruptly and pointed down. “Look!”
There, right in front of us, were hundreds of frozen footprints, some from shoes and some from bare feet, making it clear that they weren’t left by living survivors. I motioned for Asia to be silent, and her terrified face mirrored my own. By the looks of all the footprints, which stretched as far as I could see, it had to be a huge horde. I only hoped they’d already passed us, but that hope was quickly dashed when we heard a moan off in the distance.
We tried a different route, limiting our noise to the inevitable thudding of our feet and the crunching of snow underfoot. An hour passed, and I remained constantly alert, keeping an eye on our surroundings. Every little sound put me on edge.
A zombie suddenly groaned up ahead. I listened intently, and when I heard more raspy moans, I knew there was more than one.
“Looks like we’re about to have company,” Asia said. “I just hope it’s not that herd who left the footprints in the snow.”
Chapter 22
A wave of terror shot up my spine. I heard more hissing and motioned for Asia to stop.
“Wait!” I said.
“We can take on a few rotters,” she said, “but who knows how many of them there are?”
“I’m gonna try to get a better look,” I said, then shimmied up a tree, branch by branch.
“All right,” she said, pointing her rifle straight ahead. “Just try to hurry.”
“There are lots of cliffs,” I hollered down. When I had a better view, my jaw dropped. There was a hill with literally hundreds of zombies shuffling forward. “There’s a giant herd climbing up the slope!” I said. “They’re not very coordinated, and they’re falling everywhere.”
“That’s good to know. We should definitely not go that way.”
“Let’s try moving west,” I called down, but as I peered around, I realized zombies were stumbling in from every direction. “This place is like Zombie Grand Central!” I yelled. “We gotta get the heck outta here.” I wiped my brow and tried to still my racing heart as I clambered down the branches as fast as I could. I drew in choked breaths, and a sense of dread settled deep in the pit of my stomach. “They’re coming from everywhere, Asia.”
“Well, you said west is our best bet, so that’s the way we go,” she said.
I pulled her hand. “C’mon!”
We moved swiftly and quietly through the woods, not wanting to invite the zombies to a buffet. All I could think about was reaching Fairport, where we’d be safe. I knew the danger zone was called that for good reason, but when we’d formulated our little recon plan, I hadn’t realized the Army truck we stowed away in would take us so far off track.
Garbled sounds rang in my ears as a grotesquely decomposing zombie lumbered toward me. I held my breath and felt my pulse speed up. The smell of death and decay emanated from it, filling my nostril
s with a nauseating stench. Suddenly, there were more zombies in front of us, all of them with green, sagging skin and mangled faces.
“Welcome to Planet Undead,” Asia said. “I’ll take the hags to the left. You get the righties...but no gunfire, unless you absolutely have to.”
I nodded. The last thing I wanted to do was draw more freaks to us. I swung my gun wildly at the first zombie in my line of sight. It walked toward me in that slow, jerky gait of theirs, on a hobbled foot with no shoe. Its long, frizzy, blond hair swayed in the wind as it lunged for me. I snapped its decaying ribs, then smashed in its rotting face with the butt of Sandy’s rifle. Thick, white maggots, as big as the mealworms I used for fishing on the island, crawled out, and the blow sent the zombie reeling against the tree trunk. It jerked spasmodically in the snow. I anxiously brushed some maggots off my shoulder, and I had to suppress my urge to vomit.
Next, a ghoul with a slashed face snapped its jaws, revealing black, jagged teeth. It had torn, tattered skin, and its eye was hanging out on a blue, fleshy strand. Stringy blond hair clung to its rotting head, but it was too decayed for me to tell if it was male or female. Its greenish right arm was twisted in an unnatural, sickening contortion. Just as the dark, ominous creature reached for me with its good hand, I sidestepped and swung the gun with the force of a tsunami, delivering a perfect skull-cracking blow. When it fell over on its side, I stomped its head in just to make sure it wouldn’t be coming back for more. Chunks of gore exploded on the white snow as its head caved in like a rotten watermelon.
Something grabbed the back of my shirt, and I swung my body down, flipping the zombie up and over my back. Two more came at me from behind. I kicked one in the chest, then slammed my rifle against the other’s head. More rotting flesh and chunks of matted hair flew everywhere. When the zombie fell, I stomped on its buddy’s head to finish the job; the skull crunched like an egg. Two more approached, but two more strong, brain-slamming swings of the gun took them down in lightning speed.
Meanwhile, Asia was holding her own. Wielding her gun like Babe Ruth at the bat, she seemed fearless, regardless of all the zombies coming her way. My chest heaved with jagged breaths when another zombie with a bald head and a long cut running down its face walked toward me. I sidestepped it, then came from behind and delivered a fatal blow to the back of its neck, snapping it completely. It slumped to the ground. More clumsy, rotting hands began to grab and reach for me. Black fingernails clawed dangerously close to my sweaty face. When the next swipe came, I kicked its rotting knees out. It fell back, and I delivered a powerful, thunderous blow to it with my foot.
When a zombie in a dirty blue dress growled and headed toward Asia, I delivered a fatal blow to its tailbone. It fell into the snow headfirst, and Asia finished it off, decorating the snowy landscape with black blood and guts.
I gripped my weapon tightly and looked for my next target, which was pretty quick to make an appearance. In a blur, a zombie with a greenish-brown face and frizzy hair lunged at me, clearly lusting for my living flesh. Crushing jaws snapped, missing my throat by mere inches as I swerved to the right. With the butt of my rifle, I struck the bottom of its jaw, causing the corpse’s head to snap backward, shattering its rotting vertebrae. The sickening snap made me shudder, but I watched as the pile of decomposing bones and flesh crumbled to the ground.
Another undead nightmare quickly replaced its friend, coming at me from the left. I put the thoughtless monster in a headlock, then grabbed the back of its belt and lifted it upside down. I fell backward and pile-drived it onto its head, crushing it beneath my weight.
When the next one came, I bludgeoned it. Blood and gore exploded from tearing flesh as I put the serial killer out of its misery.
I glanced over at Asia just in time to see her folding a zombie in half by pinning its shoulders to the ground and placing its putrid legs above it. When she sat down with as much force as she could muster, its spine snapped. She finished it off with a kick to the head.
I peered out and scanned the area. The smell of rotting death lingered in the air, and a choir of guttural howls froze my blood. There were so many of them out there, getting ever closer, and there was no way we had enough energy or bullets to take them all down.
Asia’s gaze narrowed. “There are too many, Dean. I guess we’re gonna have to whip out the guns.”
“We can’t. It will just attract more of them,” I said.
“I know, but what choice do we have?” she asked, her voice raising an octave. “I say we fight with everything we have.”
The undead were relentless, they were coming, and we were sorely outnumbered. Gasping like a fish out of water, I looked around for an escape route, and then it dawned on me. “I got an idea.”
She grabbed my arm. “So spill it!”
“Let’s try losing them in the snowdrifts. They’re so clumsy, we might be able to—”
Before I could even finish explaining my logic, she nodded, grabbed my arm, and pulled me toward the deep snow.
A zombie came from the left, and I pounded it, splitting its head with a grotesque squishing sound. Blood showered me, and I wiped my face with the sleeve of my coat. I tried to catch my breath as I kept moving, looking around constantly so nothing would catch us by surprise.
“They’re following us!” Asia said.
“Just keep moving,” I said. “Hopefully, the snow will slow them down. Most of them don’t have shoes...and some don’t even have feet!”
I glanced over my shoulder at the pack on our butt. Their hungry moans pierced my ears, and that made me run even faster. Sweat continued to trickle down my neck and back. There was nowhere to hide. Our only choices were to keep running or climb a tree, and if we climbed, they’d just wait around the bottom for us to fall, even if it took days. I didn’t even want to think about being treed like a couple of doomed raccoons, so I opted for running. My breathing came in labored gasps as I sped forward, but I didn’t dare look back at what I was running from.
Chapter 23
The moans grew louder and more intense as their voracious appetites drove the insatiable creatures after us. The sickening dread, horror, and terror combined into a nasty knot that landed flat in the bottom of my gut. Wading through the waist-deep snow, I moved my legs like I’d never moved them before.
“Why is this snow so heavy and thick?” Asia said, fighting for every step.
“I don’t know, but don’t stop,” I replied.
I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw that my plan was working: The snow was slowing the zombies’ pursuit. They were too stupid to stop, so it wouldn’t be long before they’d be buried alive. They simply were not intelligent or coordinated enough to come after us, and Asia and I both began to laugh as they helplessly flailed and thrashed around, trying to break free.
I stopped laughing, though, when something grabbed my ankle. My heart jumped into my throat, and more shivers ran down my spine. “Something’s got me!” I said, kicking and looking down in horror. “There are zombies, Asia! Some are already buried in the snow!”
She looked at me in terror as the snowdrifts began to shake and shift. It was horrifying thinking that we might step down right into the mouth of one, like a bear trap. It was like walking through a zombie minefield, a flesh-eater could sink its teeth into me at any given moment.
Suddenly, we heard them shuffling and moaning beneath the layer of snow. We’d obviously disturbed them from their hibernation, and they were ready for a snack. Their distorted cries made me tremble. Nevertheless, we had to keep going, because going back wasn’t an option.
I held my breath with every single step I took, and I carefully steered clear from any shaking snow, knowing what evil was lurking beneath. I forced myself to take the biggest steps possible, continuously watching for gnashing teeth and ambushes from crawling zombies.
When I felt fingers wrap around my leg, a deep chill ran through me. My foot collided with the creature’s decaying, brittle face, and as I kick
ed it mercilessly, I screamed for it to die. Another brain-muncher joined in, then another. I whipped out my gun and began firing shots like a madman. I had no idea how many freaks were buried under the snow. For all I knew, it might have been a whole undead army. My only salvation was that the heavy snow made it nearly impossible for them to move much, if at all. Asia ignored her own no-gunfire rule and started blowing them away as well.
Finally, everything quieted down, and Asia motioned for me not to speak as we walked to the left, where the snow seemed still. “Just keep moving,” she whispered.
Suddenly, the snow around us began to shake violently, like an earthquake, so we veered right, but patches in that direction began to shift back and forth. I wasn’t sure there was a safe spot for us to cross, but up ahead, I noticed an area where the snow was not as deep, and it seemed to be unoccupied. If we can just get over there, we’ll be in the clear, I thought. When I saw a grotesque hand pop up, though, I backed up and zigzagged around. The snow was getting more and more shallow, but that didn’t stop a bulbous head from suddenly bursting through it, chomping its jaws at us.
“Watch out!” Asia screamed.
I jumped back and gazed down at the creature. It had thick black hair and sharp teeth and was snapping like an angry piranha. Its face looked as if half of it had been devoured, and I could tell by its sluggish jerks that it was trapped. I smacked it with my rifle, and its decaying head burst like a rotting pumpkin.
Asia and I cut through the other way. Minutes trickled by, and I wasn’t sure how much time passed as we kept our steady pace through the snow.
When we finally made it across the meadow, I let out a sigh of relief. The snow wasn’t as deep, but the terrain was pretty icy, and we had to be careful not to slip. I turned around to make sure we weren’t being trailed by anything, and it seemed all the zombies were stuck in the snowdrift, moaning their complaints, hissing, moaning, and making all kinds of racket as they tried to break free of the ice that would hold them there till spring.
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