The zombies burst into view from around the side of the house, their appearance wavy and distorted in the intense heat emanating from the blaze. And Edie had to believe that most or all of the strays must have found their brethren and joined the main group at some point, becauseholy shit. It was paralyzing,the way the pack seemed to roar endlessly forward like water from a collapsed dam, the creatures so innumerable and tightly spaced that they could have been a single, enormous entity, with a single, inexorable intention: death.
Tearing, clawing, throat-ripping, head-removing, brain-slurping death.
The leading edge of the apocalyptic river reached the backyard. Ribs heaving, gray eyes glowing with an eerie, intent light, the zombies raced through the fencing gap and…toppled into the canyon awaiting them. Gone in an instant. Gone, gone, gone and raging in their thwarted frustration at top volume, mostly in rumbling howls and keens of rage, but also at least one furious, garbled order for the mimer to stop miming.
The flow ceased, and all the zombies were contained.
Lorraine cracked her knuckles. “This might be easier than we thought. Who’s in the mood for a buffet tonight? Your treat, mini-vamp.”
“Dammit, Lorrie,” Sabrina complained. “Have you truly never heard of jinxing—”
“There are more!” Riley’s panicked voice was shredding. “This wave is bigger!”
Kip reached over and smacked the back of his cousin’s head.
Lorraine’s nose crinkled. “Sorry. That’s on me.”
The second part of the pack arrived then, and shit, that compound must have beenfucking enormous, because there was no end. The creatures leapt into the unseen pit by threes and fours, pure rage and hunger in their creepy fucking eyes, and they justkept coming.
The zombies on the bridge must have been a group of strays. Not the main pack, by any means, which meant—
“We’re in trouble,” Max muttered. “Edie, it won’t be long until—”
The zombies filled the pit.
Theyfilled it, forming a living bridge over top of the gap, and those who arrived afterward didn’t even miss a single stride as they crossed the barrier.
“Fuck.” Sabrina’s voice shook as she assumed her fighting stance.
“That’s the last of them!” The troop leader sounded close to tears, but she was still screaming out information with all her might. “Girl Explorers, get ready!”
The creatures’ howls turned exultant. Expectant. They sprinted closer and closer yet, until the bloodstains circling their muzzles and the chunks of gore in their bared teeth became much more visible than Edie would have preferred.
In an oddly beautiful wave of motion, the creatures at the front launched themselves onto their hind feet in unison, preparing for the kill ahead, and they grunted with each lengthy stride as they reached out with red-smeared claws. Their speed only increased with the proximity of prey—and they’d almost reached their midnight snack when the first zombie’s body dropped to the forest floor, decapitated.
Edie stared blankly at the rolling head.
It’d worked.
Her idea hadworked.
It was eerily noiseless too. She didn’t know if she’d expected a sucking noise or a tearing sound or…something else.
But as more zombies lurched onto two feet and leapt forward at full speed—directly into the razor-sharp wire Edie used to cut her soaps, strung tightly between the trees at the height of a zombie’s neck—their deaths were virtually silent.
“Human. We both know what happens next.” Max’s face was stone, his stance aggressive, his words rushed and fierce. “You do not risk yourself for anyone else. Understand?”
Yeah. She knew what was barreling toward them. But she couldn’t give him what he wanted, because her potential last words to him couldn’t be a lie.
Edie raised the cleaver in her right hand and the other knife in her left. “Here we go, vampire boy. Be careful.”
The whimpers and grunts from the creatures nearly drowned out Max’s rage-filled growl. This close to the zombies, the smell of blood and unwashed bodies merged with the choking smoke still billowing from the Buchwalds’ home, and the stench only worsened as more of them leapt toward their prey and into the wires.
She couldn’t smell pine anymore. Not from the trees, not from Max.
Her lungs were full of death.
“Edie,do you understand?” Max bellowed, helpless fury in every syllable.
