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I laugh and take a deep breath. “Fine, but she better get her shit together soon.”

His mouth twitches.

Then he writes one more line. I’ll make sure she does.

He hands the hatchet back to me.

More undead groan outside the front of the pharmacy. Their shadows pass across the cracked windows, jerky and uneven. Leon looks toward the street, then back at me. He taps two fingers to his eyes, points toward the back, then points at me. Stay close.

Don’t have to tell me twice.

I follow him down the aisles to the back door. He opens it and waits for me to pass through first, close enough to catch me if I stumble but careful not to touch.

The service alley behind the pharmacy is choked with snow, trash, and broken crates. The groans outside have multiplied, swelling from scattered moans into a low, rolling chorus. The street beyond the alley crawls with movement now. Not a horde, not yet, but enough bodies to become one if we stay too long.

We leave the alley and move through the back lots instead of the street, cutting between buildings, dumpsters, and abandoned delivery trucks. The infected filter toward us in ones and twos, drawn by our earlier noise but scattered enough that Leon uses them like drills.

I want to tell him I’m ready.

I want to believe it.

But my hands still shake.

The first comes from behind a frozen dumpster, missing one arm and half its scalp. Leon points to the knee.

I take the knee.

Eventually.

The first swing misses.

The second clips its shin.

The third cracks the joint hard enough to drop it. I bring the hatchet down, but my angle is wrong, and the blade glances off bone instead of sinking deep.

The infected claws toward my boot.

I make a horrible strangled sound and hit it again.

This time, it stays down.

The next infected is faster. It lunges from between two vans, and I barely get the crowbar up in time to jam it across its throat. Its teeth snap inches from my face, breath sour and wet with rot.

Too close.

Too much.

My arms lock as it shoves forward. I shove back, but my bad leg slips in the icy slush, and panic swallows every instruction Leon has given me.

Move. Turn. Use its weight.

I know the steps. I just can’t make my body obey them.

Leon is behind me instantly. His hands close over mine on the crowbar, but he doesn’t force me forward. He turns us together, slow enough for me to follow, strong enough to keep the infected’s teeth off my face.

The movement uses his strength, but he makes me keep my grip.

We pivot, and the infected’s own momentum carries it sideways. It slams into the van. Leon releases one of my hands just long enough to tap the hatchet.