Two Creepers had taken notice of my descent from the truck, their heads swiveling around, their bodies following as they began stumbling toward me with raised arms and snapping jaws. A blade in each hand, I lunged for the first, piercing its neck with one blade while sending the other into the side of its sunken skull. Pulling my weapons free, I ducked and spun away from the grasping hands of the second Creeper, reemerging behind it, giving it the same treatment as the first—one blade to the neck, and one to the skull.
Looking for Willow, I found her fighting farther down the road, furiously slashing and stabbing. I fought my way toward her, taking out another three Creepers before reaching her. She acknowledged my arrival with only a brief nod and then we were back-to-back, both of us fighting in tandem, fighting until my muscles burned and every breath felt like a flame-filled gasp; until sweat flung like rain from my sopping skin.
Breathless, chests heaving, Willow and I collapsed shoulder to shoulder, her hand fumbling for mine, and for long several moments we merely surveyed the scene around us—body parts strewn over the concrete and surrounding grassy areas, everything covered in varying colors of muck and gore.
“You good?” I wheezed.
“Uh-huh,” she replied tightly, equally out of breath. “You?”
“Me? I’m fucking great. It’s a beautiful day—I’ve got a beautiful girl.” Squeezing her hand, I smirked at her. “What could possibly be wrong?”
Despite the hellish landscape and her clear exhaustion, Willow began to laugh. “Logan, did you just make a joke in the middle of a life-or-death crisis?”
“Nope. At the end of a life-or-death crisis.”
Still smiling, she gave me a long, heavy-lidded look that made my entire body jerk to attention. “You should not joke more often. It’s kinda hot.”
Brows raised, I grinned at her. “Yeah? How hot? On a scale of one to you need me naked?”
“You need a minute off in them trees, lovebirds?” Britta sauntered toward us, holding a long-handled sword in each hand, both blades dripping with innards. Grinning, she tilted her face to the sky and inhaled. “Lawd, I sure do love the smell of death in the mornin’!”
“Woman, you’re straight fuckin’ nuts.” Davey staggered up a steep incline, his jacket torn and covered in dark spots. At the sight of him, Willow gasped.
“Davey, you bit?” Britta’s swords clattered to the ground as she rushed Davey, fumbling with his jacket. “Where ya hurt?”
“Nah, nah, everything’s fine.” Davey waved her off. “Fell down the embankment and fought with a tree stump at the bottom, is all.”
Britta sent her fist into Davey’s shoulder. “Goddang it, Davey-cakes, you fuckin’ scared me.” In response, Davey shoved her sideways, forcing her to hop over several bodies. “Y’all, it’s Dead Head hopscotch!” Laughing, she continued hopping over fallen Creepers.
“Hold up now…” Davey glanced at each of us before turning in a slow circle. “Where’s Joey?”
“I seen him down the road a bit.” Britta pointed a sword in the direction of the horde. “But that was back when we was still fightin’ by the trucks.”
“Last I saw, he’d been over there,” I said, pointing to the tree line.
We were all turning in circles now, looking up and down the long stretch of gory road, taking turns calling out Joe’s name.
Britta cocked her head to one side. “Hush now. Y’all hear that…?”
Everyone quieted, our gazes on the tree line where the sounds of twigs snapping and leaves crushing underfoot could be heard.
“What is that?” Willow asked quietly, glancing at me. Ears straining, I merely shook my head in reply.
“Whatever it is, it’s about to meet the end of my sword!” Brita grinned. “Come out, come out, whatever you are—”
A figure suddenly broke through the tree line. “Shut up and run!” Joe shouted, waving frantically. “Run, get to the trucks! There’s another horde! They’re right behind me!”
The trees had already begun to move—swaying as if they too wanted to get as far away from the approaching doom. Then the eerie, inharmonious moans of the dead came rushing up through the undulating trees, echoing up and down the otherwise quiet highway.
“Holy shit,” Willow breathed, her hand tightening around mine. “Logan, look. They’re everywhere.”
Up and down either side of the highway, Creepers were spilling out of the woods, stumbling out from behind trees at a rapid rate, one after another after another.
“I think they doubled back from up ahead,” Joe gasped, as the five of us banded together in the center of the road. “Either that or they were lagging way behind the first group. And all that noise we were making—we called ‘em straight to us.”
“We gotta get back to the trucks,” Davey ground out. “We can’t let ‘em head toward camp. We gotta lead ‘em north.”
“We’ll be fightin’ our way back to them trucks.” Britta, both swords in hand, leaped from our small circle to neatly cleave the heads off the first approaching Creepers.
“You got another idea?” Davey asked, as Britta reclaimed her place in our group.
“Nope,” Britta said. “Fightin’ it is—y’all ready for round two?”
No one replied; we simply took off running down the road, eventually splitting into two groups—Joe, Willow and I ran in the direction of our truck, while Davey and Britta headed toward theirs.
“Logan!” Willow was slashing wildly at three converging Creepers, panic causing her to miss her marks. With a heaving grunt, I shoved away the one I’d just killed and grabbed one of her attackers, sending a blade into the base of its skull. Grabbing another around its neck, I dragged it away from Willow while she kicked the third in the knees, sending it sprawling to the ground. Finishing them off, we took off running again, soon closing in on the truck. Joe was already there, shoving Creepers out of his way as he wrestled to open the tailgate.
“Keep ‘em off me!” he shouted, crawling inside the cage, kicking frantically at the mottled hands grasping for him. Willow and I dragged his attackers off him, killing them quickly, and then attempting to keep the rest at bay. It was a futile effort—there were just too many of them.
“Willow, get in the truck!” I shouted, shoving her behind me as I took a shot at an approaching Creeper. Shouts arose; somewhere someone was screaming. Distracted, my aim was off; the bullet clipped the Creeper’s shoulder, sending it stumbling back. I aimed again, this time the shot found purchase between its eyes.
“Get down!” Joe bellowed from inside the cage. “Get the fuck down!”
I dropped down just as gunfire exploded above me, a steady stream of bullets flying overhead into the approaching mass of bodies. I rolled beneath the truck, shouting Willow’s name. If she answered me, I didn’t hear her. All I could hear was the sound of the rapid-fire machine gun above me, loud enough to hurt my ears. From my hiding place beneath the truck, I watched as Creepers dropped in mass numbers, only to be replaced by new ones.
I heard the snarl too late; having crawled beneath the truck, the Creeper was already upon me by the time I noticed it. I grabbed its fast-approaching face, digging my fingers into the rotted skin around its mouth, forcing its snapping maw away from me. I released it with just enough time to shoot it straight through its open mouth; the back of its head exploding, blood and brain matter spraying like confetti. Rolling out from beneath the truck, I found myself face to face with another Creeper. Bang—I sent it flying backward with a bullet to its face.
Someone was shouting—it was Britta, I realized. She was standing on the top of her truck, a shotgun in hand, shouting as she fired. Meanwhile, Davey’s bloodied form was half slumped over the truck’s windshield, slowly sinking down to the hood.
“Come and get it, motherfuckers!” Britta stomped her feet on the roof of the truck. “I’ll kill every last one of you, ya hear me! I’ll kill all y’all!”
The world was madness. Nothing but noise and death and mo
re death.
“Logan!”
I whirled around at the sound of Willow’s voice, relieved to find her inside the truck, beckoning me through the partially open door. “I’ve got Joe’s keys!”
“Move over,” I demanded, climbing into the driver’s seat as she scrambled to get out of my way. “And tell Joe to hang on to something.”
Jamming the key into the ignition, I stepped on the gas, making a sharp U-turn in the center of the road and plowing down Creepers as I pulled up alongside Britta’s truck. “Get on!” I shouted. Only Britta was oblivious—she was still screaming, still brandishing her weapon despite having run out of ammunition. Creepers were quickly converging on both vehicles, grasping at Davey’s prone body. Sprawled on the hood of the truck, Davey’s eyes were wide and unseeing, a mouth-sized gash in his neck, blood still spurting from the wound.
“Britta—get on the fucking truck!” I barked. “Get on the goddamn truck right now!”
Britta’s bloodshot eyes dropped in my direction, a grin on her dirt-streaked face. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, Eddie! Those motherfuckers killed Davey—then they went and bit me!” She pointed to her ankle, where the cuff of her jeans were ripped and dotted with blood.
Even over the gunfire in the back, I heard Willow’s sharp intake of air. “Britta!” she screamed, leaning over me. “Get on the truck—get on the fucking truck right now!”
The shooting abruptly stopped; the groans and growls of the dead rose in earnest. “I’m out!” Joe shouted. “It’s time to get the hell outta dodge, folks.”
“You heard Joey,” Britta proclaimed to the sky. “Time for y’all to get a move on.”
“Britta!” Willow was verging on hysterical—it was all I could do to keep her from climbing over me and out the window. “Please get on the truck! Logan, make her get on the truck!”
“Britta,” I spat through clenched teeth. “If you don’t get your ass on this truck, we’re going to get mobbed and we’re all going to die. Is that what you want—you want all our deaths on your hands?”
Britta’s wild-eyed gaze landed on me, still bizarrely smiling. “Well, dang, Eddie, you sure know how to hit a girl where it hurts, dontcha?”
With a resigned sigh, she tossed her shotgun in the air, catching it and twirling it around. Holding it like a golf club, she sent the grip of the gun slamming into the head of a Creeper crawling up the windshield. “That’s for Davey,” she snarled. Another toss of her weapon, another twirl, too, and then Britta sent the battered tip of her boot straight into the face of a Creeper dangling from the side of the truck. “And that one’s for me, you goddamn, stupid, ugly fuckers!”
“Britta!” Willow continued to scream. “Get on the fucking truck!”
“Christ on a goddang cracker, Willow,” Britta said. “I’m fuckin’ comin’.” Leaping across vehicles, she landed with an audible thud on the roof above me.
“Hang on to something!” I shouted, stomping on the gas once more. The tires spun, kicking up gore as the truck blasted forward, the plow swiping oncoming Creepers off their feet and out of the way.
“We’ve got to stop!” Willow cried. “We’ve got to stop and help her!”
Swerving sharply right, clipping the corner of a cluster of Creepers, I ground out, “I can’t stop here—they’ll be on us again in minutes.”
Flying at top speed down the interstate, I took the first exit, pulling into an abandoned strip mall. Willow had thrown open the door before the truck was fully stopped, clambering out onto the pavement with a yelp. Cursing, I threw the truck into PARK and rushed outside to help her. Joe, too, had flown from the back of the truck, climbing up the cage toward the roof. Meanwhile, Britta was seated between the two racks of floodlights on the roof, her legs dangling over the windshield, looking substantially less stricken than the rest of us.
“Where’s the bite, Brit?” Joe was frantic, hauling Britta off the truck. Depositing her onto the pavement, he quickly sliced open the leg of her jeans, revealing a very red and angry imprint of teeth just above her ankle. There wasn’t much blood; it was mostly a surface wound. But in the end that wouldn’t matter. The bite had pierced the skin and once the infection spread to the bloodstream, no one lasted very long.
“Oh, Jesus, Brit, what the fuck did you do?” Joe jumped to his feet, palms pressed to his forehead, turning away.
“Oh shit,” Willow whispered, dropping to her knees beside her friend. “Oh shit, oh shit, Britta…”
“Told y’all to leave me there,” Britta said plainly. “I fuckin’ told y’all—” Britta’s words abruptly cut off. Wet sprayed across my face. I blinked, temporarily stunned as I took in the blood spatter across Britta and Willow’s equally owl-eyed expressions, both of them gaping at Britta’s partially severed limb.
With a panicked shout, Joe brought his ax down again, severing Britta’s leg only a few inches above her bite.
And then Britta began to scream. “My foot! Joey, my goddang motherfuckin’ foot!”
“Hold her still!” Joe shouted. Tossing the ax away, he began fumbling with his belt buckle, pulling the thick strip of leather free. I dropped down beside Britta, attempting to help Willow hold her still as blood pumped from the stump, coating my hands in seconds. Britta continued to scream and thrash in my grip, all the while cursing Joe.
Whipping off his shirt, Joe sat on Britta’s middle, working frantically to wrap it around her bleeding stump. Securing the belt over the makeshift bandage, he pulled and tied it tight.
Britta was still screaming and thrashing, though her movements had begun to slow and her screams had become nonsensical. Willow continued sobbing at her side, hugging Britta more than she was holding her.
“Help me get her in the truck,” Joe said, breathless. Jumping up, he swiped a blood-soaked hand across his face. “We gotta get back to camp—we gotta get her to Doc.”
At some point between lifting her off the pavement and laying her across the back seat, Britta stopped fighting. Willow scrambled inside, cradling Britta’s lolling head in her lap, while Joe began pulling various things from beneath the seats, shoving whatever he found beneath Britta’s ruined leg, in order to keep it elevated.
Shirtless, face and chest painted in Britta’s blood, he turned to me, the whites of his eyes stark against his bloodied skin. “Drive, brother,” he growled. “As fast as you fuckin’ can.”
Willow
“You’re going to be fine,” I murmured, clutching tightly to Britta’s head, stroking her sweat-slicked hair. “You’re going to be fine—everything’s going to be fine.” I shuddered, my stomach roiling with each intake of air. Along with varying degrees of body odor, the tinny, thick smell of blood filled the cab. Joe and I were covered in it; the seats were swimming in it. Despite Joe’s attempt at a tourniquet, Britta was still bleeding profusely.
I continued to whisper while Logan drove faster, almost carelessly, barreling over broken roads with single-minded focus—to get Britta home as fast as humanly possible. The pickup crested a small rise in the road before slamming down again as Logan took a hard left, sending us flying through the forest that bordered Silver Lake.
All thoughts of the second horde had been temporarily forgotten; we could only deal with one catastrophe at a time and right now everyone’s sole focus was on Britta.
“Open the gates!” Logan shouted, laying on the horn as the truck skidded to a stop outside the main gate. “Open up—Britta’s hurt—open the fuck up!”
Shouts arose from the guard tower above and the camp beyond. As the gate began to slide open, Logan stomped on the gas, forcing Joe and I to redouble our hold on Britta and brace ourselves against the seats. We lurched to another sudden stop; doors flew open, sunlight streaming inside the cab, highlighting the macabre scene.
“We need Doc—Britta’s hurt!”
There was more shouting; familiar faces swimming in and out of sight; hands pulling at me from every direction. I scrambled out of the way, allowing more capable peopl
e to take my place. Standing there in the dirt, I watched as Joe, helped by several others, carried Britta off in the direction of Doc’s cabin. Her head hung limply over Joe’s arm, her arms and legs swinging lifelessly. I slapped my hand over my mouth, stifling a sob as, suddenly, strong arms were wrapping around me, pulling me close. I slumped against Logan, gripping handfuls of his shirt, burying my face in his neck.
“It’s okay,” he muttered, soothing his hands up and down my back. “She’s gonna be okay.”
“You didn’t see her,” I whispered hoarsely. “There was so much blood—she was so pale.” My knees shook along with my words; the adrenaline that had been coursing through me only seconds ago had begun to wane.
“What the hell happened?”
Logan and I broke apart to find Leisel, accompanied by Maria and Betsey, hurrying toward us. Taking in the state of us—the blood and gore coating our clothing—their eyes widened.
“There was a second horde,” Logan hurried to explain. “Or maybe it was the original one that backtracked… or… I don’t fucking know.” He paused, dragging his bloodied hands over his bound hair. “We were just about done clearing the last of them, and then all of a sudden they were coming out of the trees—hundreds more, from every direction.”
“Britta was bitten,” I whispered hoarsely. As three sets of shocked gazes shot to me, I swallowed and tried to speak. “And… and Joe cut off her foot. She’s at Doc’s.”
Leisel’s eyes closed; she took a deep breath before opening them. “And Davey? Please tell me—”
“He’s gone,” Logan interjected, his gruff tone faltering slightly. “I don’t know how it happened, just that it happened after the second horde showed up. We were all running to the trucks and… ” he trailed off, shaking his head.
The Blood that Binds (Thicker than Blood Book 3) Page 26