Page 8 of My Undead Love Life

My hands shook so badly around my rifle that the barrel trembled. Sweat slicked my palms despite the freezing underground air.

I almost abandoned the idea of facing the horde entirely. I wanted to sprint after her into the darkness, grab her around the waist, kiss her again, and tell her we’d figure it out together like we always did.

“No!” Her voice cracked apart somewhere deeper in the tunnel. The sound hit me harder than the undead ever could.

My throat tightened painfully as I stared after the direction they’d disappeared. I could still taste her on my lips. My chest burned from breathing too hard, every inhale thick with the stench of rot drifting through the subway car.

If I followed them, the horde would catch all of us within minutes. I knew it. And Spencer would fight to stay with me again. There was a chance she’d die trying.

The thought broke me so hard it almost made my knees buckle.

Zombies slammed themselves against the shattered subway windows hard enough to rattle the entire car. Broken glass clinked onto the floor. Wet snarls and snapping teeth echoed through the tunnel as the dead forced themselves closer.

The smell of decay thickened with every passing second, making bile rise into my throat.

I had to hold them off long enough for them to get her somewhere safe. Even if it killed me. Even if Spencer hated me for it, I had to.

My eyes burned, but I refused to cry. Not now. Not while she was still somewhere out there, terrified and screaming for me.

“Run, wildflower,” I whispered raggedly to myself. My voice barely existed beneath the growing roar of the horde. “Please, keep running.”

Jerking shadows danced across the walls as the undead finally began to pour through the broken windows. Their dead eyes locked onto me with starving hunger.

Not to eat—to infect.

I tightened my grip on my rifle until the worn strap bit painfully into my shoulder. The dead swarmed the subway car, which had remained surprisingly intact until that moment.

Until everything gave out at once.

The shattered windows exploded inward beneath grasping hands and rotting bodies. Jagged glass sprayed across the floor in glittering shards, clattering against metal seats as corpses forced themselves through the openings with snarling groans.

The smell alone hit me like a physical blow before the entire subway car groaned under the impact of bodies slamming against it from every side.

I raised my M-4 and fired.

The rifle recoiled against my shoulder, jolting through my already exhausted body. A muzzle flash exploded through the dim subway car, briefly illuminating snarling, decayed faces and cloudy eyes before darkness swallowed them again.

A zombie’s skull burst apart near the window in a spray of blackened blood and shattered bone. Droplets hit my cheek and neck before sliding downward. Another corpse crawled over the body immediately after it, jaw hanging loose from rotted tendons that swung wetly beneath its chin.

I fired again.

And again.

And again.

I didn’t stop.

Gunshots thundered violently through the enclosed subway tunnel until my ears rang hard enough to drown out every other sound around me. The sharp smell of gunpowder thickened with every shot. Hot shell casings bounced off my arms and neck before skittering across the floor. Smoke curled from the barrel of my rifle while the undead kept coming.

There was no end to them.

They just kept fucking coming.

An undead woman stumbled over the subway seats toward me with half her face missing. One cloudy eye dangled partially from the socket while blood dripped from exposed teeth where her cheek should’ve been. Her guttural groan sounded almost human.

I pulled the trigger again.

Bone exploded outward. The force snapped her head backward before she collapsed across the seats with a wet thud. Blood splattered across the grimy subway windows behind her.