Even as he turned—too late, he was going to be too late—flares shrieked into the night, while climbing flames illuminated in the distance, closer to the breach site. Gwen’s work.
And there was Gwen herself. Silhouetted by the flames, clearly visible.
Irresistible temptation, especially since the creatures’ current prey had proven troublesome.
The zombie behind Max had pivoted to face the new fire, to face Gwen, and Max managed to remove its head in a single swing, but the rest of the creatures—four now?—were suddenly gone. Loping at top speed toward a human woman with no knowledge of fighting, armed only with a small, sharp knife.
In the group’s absolute worst-case scenario—i.e., the scenario they were experiencing right this moment—they’d planned to lure the pack’s remnants closer to the compound with fires and flares in hopes they could drive the creatures back through the hole in the wall. Then they’d intended to use Sabrina’s small store of remaining power to close that hole and maybe even collapse the compound’s structure on top of the zombies. Which—like their fall into the pit—wouldn’t kill them outright, but should contain them until the main battle was over and Max and Sabrina could finish the job.
That wasn’t going to happen. The situation was too out of control for such tricky maneuvering. Either the last clutch of creatures died now, or they’d kill Gwen.
Even as they bounded toward her, all four—yes, definitely four—zombies kept looking back at the snacks they’d left behind, and it slowed them down a bit. Almost enough for Max to catch up to them, because he was sprinting in an inhuman blur, with everyone else running behind him.
Almost. He wasn’t going to make it in time.
And then Gwen cried out loudly enough to echo through the forest and collapsed where she stood. She didn’t move or make another sound as the zombies bounded closer and closer. Sixty feet away. Fifty. Forty.
Two more humanoid silhouettes appeared in front of the fireand scrambled to stand in front of the fallen oracle, weapons at the ready.
Okay. So now those people were going to die too, whoever they were, because they couldn’t fight off two zombies apiece and protect a seemingly helpless woman at the same time, and no one else was going to reach them before the attack began. Not even Max.
Each footfall was a stab of fire in her side, but Edie kept running, and as she drew closer, she could actually see what was happening.
Doug stood with his tire iron raised, shoulders square, ponytail flapping in the breeze. Belinda waited at his side, brandishing a wicked-looking knife.
“Hi, friends!” Doug called cheerfully, never taking his eyes off the incoming zombies. “If we live through this, we have fresh doughnuts to share!”
Belinda’s voice rang with aggravated tolerance. “Doug made me come!”
Holy shit. The counterfeiters—two of them, anyway—had decided to help. Even if that meant dying in the effort.
At their feet, Gwen occasionally twitched, her face stony and cold. It was the same expression she’d worn while prophesizing. When she’d communed with her oracular power at Sabrina and Starla’s kitchen table, though, a stream of livid red blood hadn’t poured from her nose, and she hadn’t been seconds away from a grisly death.
Last-ditch effort time. A little surprise Edie had considered but hadn’t even mentioned to Max, because it seemed too goofy and unlikely to help anyone in any way. But it might help Gwenand Doug and Belinda now, and there was absolutely nothing to lose, was there?
She sucked in the deepest breath possible as she ran through the woods, watched the zombies lurch onto their hind legs as they growledbon appétit, and began to scream the dumbest song ever at top volume.
Over and over again, she shouted that she was the map. Like that ridiculous anthropomorphized scroll inEnora the Explorer. And to her absolute shock, the zombies whipped their heads her way, their full attention captured by the familiar asinine refrain.
Whereupon Doug killed one with a single, vicious, head-separating swipe of his tire iron, while Belinda decapitated another. Max, coming up from behind, managed the final two.
Ears ringing in the sudden silence, her heartbeat echoing in her skull, Edie slowed and frantically scanned their surroundings. Nothing. Absolutely nothing that shouldn’t be there, apart from flaming homes and a catatonic oracle and injured fighters and headless zombie bodies strewn on the forest floor.
“Is that all of ’em?” Kip shouted, and waited for an answer.
None came. At least, nothing audible.
After a minute, Sabrina tipped her head. “Starla says that must be the whole pack. The Girl Explorers don’t see any more creatures.”
A ragged cheer rose, along with a stifled sob from Sabrina.
Kip and Lorraine sprinted to Gwen’s limp body, falling to their knees on either side of her. Sabrina dropped her knife, sagged against a tree trunk, and appeared to be having an intense, tear-soaked conversation entirely within the confines of her thoughts. Doug and Belinda high-fived each other and tuckedaway their own weapons, then began gathering Tupperware containers in their arms.
Max sheathed his sword and turned to Edie, his exhaustion evident in dark hollows beneath his blue eyes and creases lining his yellow-splattered features. “You’re injured, ma puce. Let me see.”
He reached for the zipper of her half-shredded coveralls.
A stray zombie burst through the trees behind him, no longer hidden by the shadowed depths of the forest, its hind legs bunched for the killing leap.
