She would pat his arm in consolation, but she didn’t want to accidentally stab him, so she simply cast him one last, split-second glance. Stamped him indelibly into her memory, strong and whole and nearly unhinged with terrible, terrified love for her.
The howls of the zombies closing in seemed to pierce her eardrums.
“Be careful,” she repeated, but she couldn’t tell if he heard her over the deafening, knee-weakening sound of last night’s plan inexorably heading toward the worst-case scenario.
The razor wire would only work as a temporary measure,which they’d known ahead of time. It bought them a couple of minutes and removed a few zombies, but that was all.
Far too soon, the stack of bodies under the makeshift garrote became an obstacle, the creatures veered around their fallen comrades, and their speed dropped. Without sufficient momentum, they didn’t lop off their own heads when they hit the wires that ringed the fighters. They merely gouged out chunks of flesh and lost sprays of sickly yellow blood, and that wasn’t enough to kill or stop them.
It did slow them considerably, though.
“Girl Explorers!” Riley’s hoarse shout echoed through the trees. “Troop initiative three-oh-five, Zombie Restraint, begins now!”
Shit. They’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. The girls had already drained so damn much of their power with the firebreak and the pit. They couldn’t have much left, but—
“If you die,” Max snarled, “I will find you. I don’t care if I have to rip out the throat of Death, Edie. I will fuckingfind you, wherever you go, for the sheer joy ofkilling you myself.”
She had to laugh, despite the adrenaline and terror slicking up her palms and shaking her knees. “Love you too, babe.”
Branches whipped down from the trees and lashed around some creatures’ wrists, while roots erupted from the soil and manacled the ankles of others.
There was no time to panic. Calm settled over her like a cool blanket.
She knew what to do. They all did.
“Now!” Lorraine shouted, and all five of them waded into battle.
26
Hobbled at their wrists or ankles, zombies weren’t especially difficult to kill.
Edie didn’t let herself think about it. She simply lashed out as hard as she could, cutting through their necks as quickly and cleanly as possible, then moved on to the next creature held in place by the Girl Explorers.
Beside her, Max wielded his sword in graceful, deadly arcs, each one producing a grunt from his chest and a headless zombie corpse at his feet. Not too far away, Sabrina’s axe glinted in the firelight as she swung it with a two-handed grip and efficiently took down the creatures nearest to her position. Across the little campfire, Kip and Lorraine were doing…something.
“How…” Edie paused to decapitate a zombie. “How’s…it…going, Lorrie?”
“Turns out, you can twist off their little heads like a soda cap!” the troll yelled. “It’s fun!”
“I’m getting hungry, though!” Kip added. “If my godsdamn cousin hadn’t mentioned a freaking buffet—”
“Sue me, bro!” Lorraine gave a pleased exclamation. “I’m really getting the whole motion down now! That one was easy!”
“Shit!” Kip suddenly yelled, all levity gone, and Edie whipped her head his way.
He was falling, hard. He landed on the ground with a wheezing, pained-sounding “fuck,” even as an unsecured zombie flew over his head, teeth and claws poised for throat-ripping.
In a flash, the troll was back on his feet.
“Good…work, Gwen!” He lunged for the creature who’d been trying to de-brain him. “Tripped by a root, just as you predicted!”
“Edie,” Max hollered, just as Kip clasped the zombie in his huge hands and ripped off its head with a crunching sound and a spray of yolky blood. “Behind you!”
Branches caught the wrists of the creature at Edie’s back while it was still mid-leap, and Edie directed a breathless thank-you toward the treetops after she cut off her attacker’s head.
Then there was nothing but cutting and blood and bursts of pain as the zombies kicked her with their unbound legs or clawed at her with their free hands while she killed them. It went on and on, terrible and unceasing, until…the zombie in front of her broke out of its wrist restraints.
She’d already cut about halfway through its neck, so she was able to finish the job before it lashed out at her, but the near miss was a bad sign. A really, really fucking bad sign.
