Page 93 of My Undead Love Life

Keith.

My chest tightened every time I thought about it, not because I thought she was wrong for any of it, but because I didn’t know where that left me. I didn’t know where that left us.

I didn’t know how it would work. I’d never been in a situation like this before.

Spencer stepped out of the van first, boots crunching against the snow. Her breath fogged in the cold air as she scanned the street, katana ready to strike. The morning light was dull and gray, filtering through thick clouds that looked ready to crack open again. The streams of sun caught in her red and white-streaked hair where loose strands had escaped her hat, and for half a second, all I could do was look at her.

She looked exhausted and cold…and still so fucking beautiful.

I forced myself to look away before she could catch me staring. My axe was still buried deep in the skull of the dead leopard beside the van door.

The infected animal lay twisted in the snow, pale fur matted with blackened blood, its jaw hanging open around teeth that had nearly torn me apart the night before. One milky eye stared at nothing. Frost had already begun to collect along its whiskers.

I planted my boot against its skull and pulled until the axe came free with a wet crack. “Not sure when the fucker died, but I’ll take it,” I muttered.

“It could’ve dropped the moment we shut the door to the van,” Spencer whispered. Her voice still had that distant edge to it. It had been that way since finding the message carved into the van.

“Maybe.” Luck looked left, gripping his shovel tight. “Clear left.”

“Right’s clear, too,” Oxi added, standing close to Spencer.

“Firehouse is a few blocks south,” I murmured. “Should be safe there for the night. Stay close.”

The streets were worse than I remembered. Snow had mixed with debris, dirt, old blood, and rot into a grotesque slush that sucked at our boots with every step. The wind howled between the buildings, carrying that faint, ever-present scent of decay that lingered from the horde.

Spencer walked in the middle of us, exactly where I wanted her. Oxi kept to her left. Luck stayed right. I took point, axe ready, eyes scanning our surroundings constantly. Anything in the city could hide a threat, and the threats were multiplying by the day. One thing that hadn’t changed was that the undead, even the intelligent ones, were more predictable compared to the living.

Even though after encountering the leopards, infected animals had stopped feeling predictable. I’d still rather take the infected animals than other survivors.

“Stragglers!” Luck barked.

Several spread-out zombies groaned ahead, their decomposing heads whipping toward us.

The four of us moved. I stepped forward automatically, swinging toward the faster one. The axe bit deep into its skull with a wet crack. The impact traveled up the handle and into my arms. I ripped it free and pivoted, bringing it down again on another that stumbled too close.

To my left, Spencer moved. And fuck. She was something else entirely. The blade of her katana flashed in tight, controlled arcs, bright against the filthy snow. She didn’t hesitate for a single movement. She stepped around a reaching hand and sliced clean through the neck before the zombie could even shift its weight toward her.

I should have been focused only on the active threats. I shouldn’t have noticed the way her body flowed with the weapon.

Oxi stabbed a few through the eyes, dropping them with his cane sword in quick, precise movements. Luck used his shovel, and it still surprised me how effective it was against the undead. He swung the flat edge like a club, cracked one skull against the hood of a car, then drove the sharpened edge down into another’s temple.

After the last undead dropped, we picked up our speed. None of us spoke. We kept quiet and made time efficiently.

By the time the sun disappeared behind the clouds, turning the sky a bruised gray, we were all breathing harder.

“Almost there,” I promised.

My old station was a few blocks ahead, and the closer we got, the worse my chest felt. I hadn’t been back since I left. Since they told me I was too controlling and paranoid. They decided my rules to keep everyone safe were the problem and not the world full of infected corpses trying to turn them into undead like them.

I told myself I didn’t care, but…

“Oxi!” Spencer shouted.

I turned just in time to see one of the infected lunge from behind a car. Oxi twisted, but not fast enough.

Thankfully, Spencer was already there. Her blade came down in a brutal, precise strike, dropping the zombie before it could touch him. The body collapsed at Oxi’s feet, blood spreading into the snow.

“Are you okay?” she asked, grabbing his arm. Panic swirled in her gaze.