Page 44 of My Undead Love Life

My hand flew to my katana, but Luck moved first.

He holstered his gun and ran over with a sharp breath and swung his shovel in a hard, brutal arc. The metal cracked against the first zombie’s head with a sound that made my teeth clench. The blow knocked it sideways into the car door, denting the rusted metal with a hollow bang.

It still reached for him.

Luck tried to step back, but his boot caught on a chunk of broken asphalt. He stumbled, arms windmilling for one terrible second as the zombie lurched toward him with its jaw opening wide.

“Luck!” I shouted.

Mad was already there, hitting the other zombie with his axe before it could circle around the car, the blade biting deep into its skull.

The body folded immediately.

Luck recovered just in time and slammed the edge of the shovel down again, harder this time, driving the zombie to the ground. It twitched beneath the blow, fingers scraping at the asphalt with a dry, frantic sound.

He brought the shovel down once more, breathing through his teeth, and the zombie finally stopped.

“I hate that those fuckers are intelligent now,” Luck muttered as he stared at the corpses near his feet.

“Me, too,” Oxi huffed.

“Move, move, move,” Mad urged, waving us toward the shattered entrance doors ahead.

Luck, Oxi, and I followed close behind, close enough that our sleeves brushed.

The entrance stretched wide ahead of us, broken doors yawning open into darkness. Jagged glass still clung to the frames, and more of it littered the ground beneath them, crunching softly under Mad’s boots as he approached. The gate was down, and the inside looked like a cavern of shadows from out here, deep and still and impossible to read. The sunlight reached only a few feet past the threshold before the mall swallowed it.

The horde’s rot still rolled over us from behind, thick and wet, but beneath it came the stale scent of old stores, dust, and mold.

Luck glanced over his shoulder. “They’re way too close.”

“At least they aren’t running,” Oxi muttered.

I couldn’t stop myself from looking. The street beyond the parking lot had become a river of bodies. They poured between the dead traffic and broken curbs, filling every open space as if the city itself had bled them out. Decayed hands clawed forward, faces hanging half-rotted with their mouths open. Their movement wasn’t fast, but there were so many of them that speed didn’t matter. They pressed forward with the awful patience that reminded me of floodwater.

My stomach twisted again, and I looked away.

“Don’t watch them,” Luck said, breathless beside me.

“I know.” But my voice shook because I had watched them, and now the image was in my brain.

Mad passed the main doors, veering sharply along the front of the building, scanning the wall until his flashlight caught on a small broken hole in the side where the bricks had been removed. It was low and jagged, half-hidden behind a twisted piece of metal and a dead shrub that was brown and brittle against the wall.

“Inside!” Mad ordered, moving the piece of metal.

Luck dropped first. He shoved his shovel through the opening ahead of him, then flattened himself and slipped into the hole with a grunt. A broken brick scraped against his jacket before he vanished into the dark.

I could hear the horde behind us, closer now, the groans spreading across the parking lot. Something metal crashed outside, maybe a shopping cart was shoved aside, or maybe one of the dead collided with an abandoned car.

“Your turn,” Mad said, right behind me.

I crouched and pushed my katana through first, keeping one hand tight around the hilt until Luck’s hand appeared from the darkness and took my wrist.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

I ducked my head and squeezed through. Rough brick scraped my shoulder and caught at my jacket. Dust broke loose above me and spilled into my hair, gritty against my scalp. My backpack snagged, and my breath hitched. I went cold at the thought of being stuck there with the dead coming up behind us.

Luck pulled from the inside while I twisted, and the strap jerked free.