Page 1 of Bound in Ashes

ONE

Asia

The first one went easy.

The second one made me earn it.

And earn it I did.

With tall grass brushing my shins and twisting around my feet, I swung.

Hard.

The impact of metal against bone reverberated through my arm with comfortable familiarity.

That feeling shouldn’t have been comfortable.

Not really.

I’d only done this a couple of times since the world had gone to hell.

My grip on the metal wrench was tight, and I grunted with the force of my next swing. The zombie’s forehead split, spewing foul-smelling black goo before it slumped into the grass.

Apparently I really was a fast learner.

Before, that validation would have brought a smile to my face.

External proof of my value.

Not now, though.

Now I had to stay alive.

The roof of Uncle Levi’s house peeked over the next hill. I pushed through the tall grass, my stolen hiking boots cushioning each step as I fought to stay on my feet.

Stumbling, falling, anything else would have sealed my doom.

I wiped at the sweat sprinkling my forehead and risked looking back.

Maybe I shouldn’t have.

A wave shambled toward us, cresting the hill in a broken line. At first glance, it could have been a parade, people of every shape, size, age, and color coming together for a singular purpose.

But these weren’t people.

Not anymore.

I tried to catalogue the staggering dots, but it was futile.

It might have been fifty.

A hundred.

A thousand.

I wasn’t sure.

What I did know with every fiber of my being was that those things meant death.