by Amy Miles
Another wide streak of blood trails down from her hairline but it appears that she is breathing shallowly.
“She’s breathing,” I yell out. “It looks like she hit her head hard on the way down. That’s probably why she’s unconscious.”
I don’t want to tell him about the thorns until I have a chance to look her over. Maybe she got lucky. The higher up in the tree the fewer thorns seem to grow.
“What about you?”
“I banged up my ribs pretty good on the way down and my hands are sliced up, but I’ll get her out of here.”
Brushing my frizzy curls back from my face, I vow that the next time I find a pair of scissors, I am shearing it all off. “I’m going to try to wake her up without knocking us both out of the tree. Make sure if we fall, you start shooting.”
“I was right. She is insane,” I hear Warren say. A second later I hear him grunt with pain and wonder if it was Nox or Cyrus that thumped him.
“If I can get her up and moving then I will position her close to the balcony. There’s no way she’ll be able to make the jump in her condition.”
There is a pause for conversation among the soldiers as I steadily work my way up to the unconscious girl. With each vibration or snap of a branch, my heart leaps into my throat with fear that this might be the moment that I fall to my death.
Pressing my hand to Zoey’s cheek, I’m alarmed by how cool she feels. Ducking to look beneath her, more blood drips onto my forehead. Using my fingers to slowly feel along her abdomen and chest, I fall still when I feel multiple thorns buried in her.
Closing my eyes, I allow a moment of weakness as a single tear slips through. Zoey is gravely injured and that’s on me. Wiping away the tear, I smear some of her blood across my cheek and then poke my head out to stare up into the light.
“Nox, we have a problem.”
“How bad is it?”
I don’t want to say, but I know that I have to. “She’s not going to be jumping anytime soon.”
“Shit.” His pained groan tears at me as I hear his soldiers try to offer their condolences.
I should have held on to her. I should have made sure that zombie was really dead. Zoey was right to worry. My pride and rush to get her to safety likely just killed an innocent girl.
“Can you move her?”
With a heavy sigh, I climb out as far as I dare on the branch. Three beams of light blind me and I raise my hand to shield myself from their brilliance. “I’m not sure that I should. She needs a doctor, but even then...”
A sudden static fills the space and Nox pulls away from the balcony edge. The light lowers just enough for me to see that he has grabbed a radio just as chatter floods through the speakers.
Although some of the conversation is broken, I get the message loud and clear: the hotel is not entirely secured yet.
“First floor is still on lockdown,” Nox yells down to me. “I’ve been told that we can’t risk sending any medical personnel in here until we clear it.”
“How long?” I look back at the motionless girl. She won’t last much longer.
“Unclear. I’ve been told to hold my position until I receive further orders. Cap and his team are heading our way, but it’s slow going and they are losing men.”
Glancing at the restless Flesh Bags pacing beneath me, I know what I have to do. The only chance at saving Zoey is to clear a path to Cap and bring help to her.
“Nox?” I call out.
“Yeah.”
Looking back up into the light, I grip my knife in hand. “How fast are these bastards?”
“Oh, hell no. She isn’t thinking what I think she’s thinking, is she?” Cyrus’s voice carries through the dark atrium.
“Don’t even think about it. You won’t survive if you drop down there.” Nox says. “They are fast, deadly and intelligent. The higher ups don’t want to admit it but there’s no sense sugar coating it. Those things can communicate somehow and I’ve seen what they are capable of when they hunt in packs. You need to stand down.”
“Do they have any weaknesses?”
“I told you she’s crazy,” I hear Warren. I don’t want to agree with him, but there’s no denying that what I’m considering is as close to suicide as I can get without slashing my own wrists.
“Nox! Are there any weaknesses?” I stare defiantly up at the balcony where all four of the soldiers lean over the railing only a few feet away. I could make that leap to safety and wait for Cap’s team to arrive but doing so pretty much seals Zoey’s fate. I lost one person that I love to fate. I’ll be damned if I let it steal that poor girl too.
“They hate the light. Seems to hurt their eyes,” he finally says. From this close distance, I can see how much he doesn’t want to give me that information.
“Then light them up and I’ll draw them away. Cyrus is too heavy for this branch but Warren and Kenzie can probably make the jump. Stay with Zoey, and if I make it, I’ll bring back help.”
“Like hell, you will!” Nox begins to climb over the railing.
“Sir!” Kenzie tugs on his arm. “Your orders are to stand down.”
“I’m aware of that but I’m not going to watch her die.”
“She’s not one of us.”
Nox drills Kenzie with a hard glare and the girl backs up a step. “She should be. She’s more than proven her worth today.”
“No offense, Nox, but I work better alone,” I call out, watching as he surveys the tree. Backing away so that he doesn’t come crashing into me, I wait and watch. I won’t deny that having someone else beside me would greatly even the odds, but that just means I might have more blood on my hands.
“Tough shit,” he grunts and makes the leap. His tall, lean frame closes the gap with far more grace than I managed but his footing falters. I reach out and clasp my hand around his forearm with my left arm while I anchor us to the tree trunk with the other. The smaller thorns bury two inches into my arm and side but I hold on tight, refusing to let him fall as he regains his footing. The tension on my arm eases as he finds his balance and I breathe through the pain.
“You okay?” It surprises me when he focuses on me instead of Zoey.
“I feel like I just wrestled with a porcupine and lost,” I grumble as I dig out the thorns. Nox watches each grimace of pain but doesn’t offer to help and he settles for placing a hand around my waist to keep me stable on the branch while I work.
“You saved my ass. Thank you,” he says after I pluck out the final thorn.
“Well, it is a pretty nice ass.” I smile and wipe away the pinpricks of blood.
I see a ghost of a smile touch his lips before he finally looks up at Zoey on the branch overhead. Reaching up to take her hand, he flinches at the chill of her skin.
“She’s worse than you said,” he whispers.
“I was trying to keep you from doing something reckless.”
“Yeah.” He squeezes her hand and then slowly releases it. “I’ll bring help for you. I promise.”
Hearing the constriction in his voice, I look away to give him a moment to collect himself. The bond between them was stronger than I thought and to see him now makes me appreciate the softer side to him that I doubt few ever witness.
Glancing down at the Flesh Bags clawing at the tree with enough force to tear the flesh from their fingers, Nox takes a deep breath. “You ready for this?”
“Hell no,” I mutter, wishing that I had my ax or hammer in hand instead of someone else’s dagger. Though serrated and undeniably deadly, it doesn’t feel quite right in my hand. “For Zoey?”
“For Zoey.” Nox grins. “On three?”
I don’t even wait for him to say one before I drop to the ground and start slashing.
EIGHT
The scent of rot leaves a profound sickening hole in my stomach as I duck the waving h
ands of one Withered and kick a second in the groin. If it had been any normal human male, I would have sent him crashing to his knees, but this monster takes the hit and keeps on coming.
“Behind you!”
I turn and bury my blade in the Flesh Bag sneaking up on Nox but am thrown off balance when it whirls around. Losing my grip on the knife, I slam into the wall and bounce off, rolling to my right to narrowly avoid another swiping hand. “I lost my knife!”
Nox slams the butt of his gun into the nose of a Flesh Bag and rams it straight into the floor. The blackish ooze seeps out around the gun and dangles from the bottom when he yanks it free. Taking aim at the monster that tried to attack him from behind, he fires three shots into its forehead and drops it.
I crouch on the balls of my feet and try to dash away but fingers tangle in my hair and I feel several clumps tear from my scalp as I’m yanked back. Off balance and falling to the floor, I scramble on my hands and feet as the rotting Withered behind me digs her nails into my jeans.
This woman is wearing a doctor’s coat that is soiled but far cleaner than it should be. Whoever this lady was, she wasn’t turned all that long ago. Her name badge reads Dr. Fuentes.
“Catch!”
I glance up in time to see Nox tossing my knife toward me. Kicking the zombie solidly in the jaw, I hear a loud crack as its mouth unhinges and dangles in a gruesome grin. Clambering for the knife, I seize it with blood-slickened fingers and slice at the leg of the Flesh Bag beside me. Though its guts are splattered all over the floor from where I disemboweled it moments before, it continues to gnash its teeth.
“How do I kill them?” I shout as the lights overhead shift in my direction and I’m left blinded for a moment too long. Slammed from behind, I hit the floor hard. I can hear the clicking of a jaw beside my ear as a rank odor washes over my face.
Then suddenly the weight is lifted from me. I hear the snarl of the Flesh Bag just before it slams into the wall and Nox empties a handful of bullets into it. The monster drops like dead weight and lies still, but I’ve seen that trick before and vow to make a wide arc around it when we leave just in case.
Breathing deeply, Nox holds out his hand to me and helps me up. “The kill shot is to the brain. Nothing else seems to work.”
Rubbing my bleeding left shoulder as I stare at the bodies littering the ground around us, I glare at him. “Don’t you think that might have been an important bit of information to share with me before we jumped down here?”
Nox lifts the hem of his shirt and wipes his face clean of the smeared gore. Glancing down, I see the well-defined abs that I suspected lay beneath before he lowers the shirt and checks his magazine for ammunition. “You jumped before I had a chance.”
“We were counting to three. Not still having a conversation!”
“Are you two done acting like an old married couple?” Kenzie shouts down, drawing our attention up to the second floor. “Radio says the southern and eastern quadrant has been cleared. Cap is coming in from the north but the western section is still a hostile territory.”
I glance over at Nox. “Which quadrant are we standing in?”
Nox grabs another magazine and slams it into place. “Western.”
“Of course we are.” I wipe my blade clean and try not to think of what I would give to have a hot shower right about now.
“You are welcome to climb back up in that tree and wait for the cavalry to arrive, love.” He moves over to the edge of the building and holds up his hand. Cyrus tosses down two spare magazines from above and he easily catches them.
“Like hell, I will. This was my idea, remember?”
Nox moves closer with his hand held out and I realize that he’s offering me a gun. “This isn’t a pissing match, love. You did your part and saved the day, but this fight isn’t yours. This is my home and I gotta do what it takes to secure it.”
“You can’t do this on your own. I’m coming with you.”
His brow furrows. “You don’t owe us anything. You know that, right?”
“Doesn’t change anything. You need help and I’m here to give it.” Nox looks me over with an appraising glance and then tries to press the gun into my hand but I push him away. “I don’t use guns unless it’s an emergency.”
“And what do you call this?” He waves his arms around, making sure to point out the four dead bodies at our feet.
“I call it just another day in this shitty world we live in.”
Nox laughs and shakes his head, then holsters his gun. “Amen to that. Well, if we’re going to do this, we might as well do it right. You ready to move?”
I smirk and step on ahead of him and plunge into the darkness, letting my actions be the answer that he needs.
From behind me, I can hear the steady low hum of his flashlight as we move down a never ending hallway. Muffled gunfire can be heard from time to time but it never sounds like it is getting any closer.
“You know that your friends are flushing them in our direction, right?” I say, looking back over my shoulder.
“The thought did cross my mind. Keep your eyes open. The Flesh Bags could be hiding anywhere. Once they catch the scent of blood they will be on us in a second.”
“Great. They are just like sharks,” I mutter and tug on the tourniquet on my left shoulder. The bandaging around my palms has soaked through but there’s nothing I can do about it. “I might as well be walking bait.”
“Glad you volunteered?” Nox holds out his hand to stop me before he sweeps his gun and light into an open doorway, pausing to clear the room. We move slowly, rapping knuckles against each doorframe that we pass to see if we can draw anything out but we make it down the first hallway and into the second before we see anything.
Nox grabs my arm and pulls me back when his flashlight beam falls on a huddled form halfway down the hall with its back turned to us. Clicking the button to turn off the light, we allow ourselves a moment to let our eyes adjust to the dark. At regular intervals along the hallway, small red lights flash on and off. They must be part of the emergency system the military installed when they took up residence.
My stomach twists at the squelching sound as I peer around the corner to watch a female digging her hands into the opened stomach of a soldier and pulling out long lengths of intestines. She sniffs them and an approving growl rises in her throat before she takes a huge bite.
“That’s disgusting,” Nox whispers.
“Is that normal for them?” I rise to my toes to whisper in his ear as he comes to stand next to me. When he nods, the stubble along his jaw tickles my lips.
“These new ones are always hungry.”
Lowering back down to the floor, I admit to myself that we are royally screwed. When the dead first started walking I thought maybe we’d skate by with a docile breed of zombie but turns out fate was just having one hell of a laugh at our expense. What I see down that hall is a full on mind fuck that I wish I could unsee, and that thing isn’t alone.
This isn’t Hollywood creating creatures worthy of nightmares. This isn’t some author’s sick imagination spilling off the pages or a TV producer’s imagination coming to life. This is reality and it’s scary as hell.
“Are we just going to stand here or are we going to take it out?” I ask in a hushed voice. Although there is a concern that I might be heard, I seriously doubt that thing down the hall could hear me over its smacking lips.
Nox swivels his head back and forth between the hallways. I watch him as he leans back to stare at the directional sign on the wall. From somewhere down the hall, beyond the Withered buffet, comes a strange gurgling sound followed by a screeching moan.
Gooseflesh rises along my arms as I instinctively cling to Nox. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “You okay there, dumbass?”
It takes me a second to realize that he’s trying to lighten the mood
and I force a smile. “Avery.”
“What?”
“My name is Avery. ‘Dumbass’ was getting a bit old and ‘love’ just has to go.”
I search his face for any signs of recognition when he processes my name but his expression remains clear. “Avery, huh? That’s kind of sexy.”
A snort escapes me and Nox instantly claps his hand over my mouth but it’s too late. From down the hall, the Flesh Bag has fallen silent. The chewing sounds have vanished, only to be replaced by the sound of deep breathing, like it’s trying to catch our scent. Nox presses his arm tightly across my chest, holding me against the wall just around the corner.
A loud wheezing groan suddenly erupts from beside Nox and the passage is lit momentarily with a spray of bullets. In the light, I see the horrific pasty flesh of the Withered female. Its skin is peeling off its face in large chunks. Its eyes are coated with a solid white film, eerily apparent in the darkness before it vanishes from sight. She is farther gone than the four we just put down in the atrium.
Then everything goes dark.
“Nox?”
A terrible crashing sound erupts from the other end of that hallway and suddenly I’m being yanked in the opposite direction. “Run! They know we are here now.”
We do not bother trying to mask the pounding of our feet as we run full out back the way we came. Nox’s newly illuminated flashlight dances over the ground as he pulls me after him, urging me to move faster than I feel capable of going, and yet it isn’t enough. From behind me, I can sense a presence and know that we are being closely followed.
“How many are there?” I cry out as Nox skids to a halt and shoves me through an open door. He slams the door shut behind him and barely gets the latch in place before something slams into it.
“Use anything heavy that you can find to barricade the door!” Nox is already on the move, setting his gun down so that he can shift a waist height metal and wood table in front of the door.