Page 3 of My Undead Love Life

More hot tears spilled down my cheeks. “Don’t ask me to do that.”

“I’m asking because I love you.” His voice cracked completely on the last word. “And because I can’t die knowing you’ll throw your life away just to die with me. Don’t make me die like that.”

“You can’t die, Keith!” I screamed in tandem with another horrifying screech echoing from the broken window as more hands clawed through the opening.

Keith’s lips brushed over mine for one fragile second longer. “Live for both of us, wildflower,” he whispered.

The sounds of shouting bounced wildly off the subway tunnel walls, tangled with the shrieks and groans of the undead until the words became impossible to make out.

Zombies didn’t shout.

Our heads snapped toward the noise.

Three figures emerged through the darkness farther down the tunnel, moving fast, barely visible through the sun being let in from the cracks in the walls. At first, they were only shifting silhouettes with flashes of metal catching the dim light. One carried something long over his shoulder, another looked back slightly as he ran, and the third moved with reckless speed, weaving through the infected like he’d done this a hundred times before.

My stomach tightened as I noticed the swarm behind them.

We were surrounded.

The zombies crowding our subway car’s attention shifted with groans, their milky eyes locking onto the newcomers. Several corpses peeled away from the windows and lurched toward the tunnel. The air filled with wet snarls and the shuffle of dragging feet.

“Hey, you three!” Keith shouted through the broken windowpane. “Do you believe in good deeds?”

One of the strangers barked out a laugh that sounded absurdly upbeat considering the apocalypse surrounding us.

“Sure!” the blond man called back cheerfully. His face was mostly hidden from shadows, but I caught messy pale hair and the gleam of blue tape wrapped around the handle of a shovel he swung into a zombie’s skull. “Someone has to!”

The crack of bone echoed sickeningly through the tunnel. The corpse collapsed at his feet, but another immediately lunged from the dark. The blond man stumbled backward with a startled curse, his boots skidding on smeared blood.

Rotten teeth snapped inches from his throat before a flash exploded in the darkness.

The blond man had dropped hard to one knee, holding a pistol. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed tunnel. The zombie’s head jerked violently before it crumpled lifelessly across the tracks.

The ringing echo lingered in my ears.

“Okay, that one was my fault,” the blond stranger muttered breathlessly as he scrambled upright again. “I looked cool for a second, though, right?”

“Barely,” another man answered from somewhere behind him. His voice was calm in a way that felt unnatural compared to the chaos around us. He had black hair and brought a fire axe down on another undead. “Try not to die here.”

Blood sprayed across the tunnel wall.

The third stranger moved beside him. Shaggy black hair partially obscured his face as he drove a cane sword clean through a zombie’s eye socket, reaching the brain with a wet crunch before yanking the blade free again.

“Why’d you ask about good deeds?” he shouted toward us.

Keith stepped closer to the shattered subway window, tightening his grip on the M-4 strapped across his chest. “Because my girlfriend and I are trapped in here and about thirty seconds away from becoming one of them!”

The black-haired guy with a sword glanced toward the subway car, then toward the horde surrounding it. “We can see that much.”

A zombie clawed toward him from the tracks. Without looking, he slammed the axe sideways into its jaw hard enough to spin the corpse around.

“You always this chatty during life-threatening situations?” Keith called.

“It calms my nerves!” the blond stranger shouted back. “Also, it annoys him.” He jerked a thumb toward the axe-wielding man.

“It really does,” the dark-haired man confirmed flatly before burying the fire axe into another skull. The blade stuck for half a second with a horrible crunch. He planted a boot against the corpse’s chest to wrench it free. “Now, move.”

The cane-sword wielder’s sharp eyes flicked toward Keith and me through the darkness. Even with the low light, I could feel him assessing us.