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“Of course I am. I conjured a fluffy rabbit from my trusty hat.” Antoine held up a black top hat, which he collapsed and stuffed in his knapsack. “I then scurried up to safety. I’ve been watching your progress. Excellent swordsmanship, Jax.”
“We can talk about that later. Right now let’s get the hell out of Dodge.” Jax hopped from the chair to another piece of upended furniture. “If we can stay up here, I don’t think we’ll have any problems. They don’t seem to be climbers.”
“Brilliant, my boy. Brilliant.”
Feeling more confident by the second, Veronica stood up and looked down to where Antoine had abandoned his flashlight.
The female zombie stared right at her, smiled and giggled.
“Shit.”
Ignoring the nervous shake in her left hand, Veronica pivoted around to take a look at what had Jax’s attention. From the top of the chair, she could see all the way to the door. Everywhere she looked, zombies moved like mice through a crowded maze of giant-sized broken furniture and debris.
There were hundreds of them.
Chapter 5
As soon as they got down the beanstalk, Jax was going to kill Antoine. Slowly. Maybe with a spoon.
The zombies milled around below them, banging into each other and the furniture like bumper cars made out of rotting flesh.
There was no way in hell his mentor hadn’t known a horde of zombies was a possibility. The man researched everything to death–no pun intended. Antoine’s little secret had risked Veronica’s life. That was not acceptable. Anger burned a hole in Jax’s gut. “Okay, spill it, Antoine.”
“What do you mean?”
“About the zombies. What are their weaknesses?”
Antoine had the decency to look sheepish, his bushy white eyebrows raised. “Well then, they move more slowly in the daylight hours.”
“That’s why you insisted we leave at the crack of dawn.” The steel in Veronica’s voice did not bode well for Antoine once they made it down the beanstalk.
“Quite right. The undead are hungry at all times but especially once the sun sets. As I’m sure you’ve deduced, they’re attracted to light and noise. They don’t have the brain function to pick a leader, but instead have a pack mentality, attacking–as a group–whatever is unlucky enough to find itself in their path.”
Jax glanced down at his watch. “Noon. We have plenty of time, but I don’t feel like pushing it. Let’s go.” The zombies were everywhere in the g
loomy space, but they kept their attention focused only on what was directly in front of them. “It doesn’t look like they climb very much. If we can jump from chair to chair, we can get to the door but once we’re in the hallway where there isn’t as much furniture, all bets are off.”
“We’ll figure something out.” Veronica moved up beside him, hesitated for a moment and then sailed over the open space between chairs. She landed easily on the next chair.
Antoine huffed and puffed before launching himself across the chasm. His feet touched the edge and he wavered. Jax held his breath. Even as pissed off as he was at Antoine, he’d throw himself to the stone floor before letting the zombies make dinner out of his mentor.
Veronica ran to the edge, wrapped her fingers around Antoine’s forearm and yanked him forward.
Antoine stumbled before regaining his balance and giving Jax a thumbs up.
The man must have nine lives in his back pocket. Jax set his jaw and raced across the wood chair. He whizzed over the abyss, refusing to look down or consider failure. Hanging in the open air with nothing between his toes and the zombies below, a single image overwhelmed him. Veronica first thing in the morning, stumbling blindly to the coffee pot, her eyelids at half-mast and her long ebony hair tangled. The most gorgeous woman in the world. The rubber sole of his boots landed with a light thud on the neighboring chair. He wobbled and went onto one knee.
“Smooth move, Mr. Stud Archeologist.” Veronica held out a hand, offering to pull him up.
“I aim to please whenever I’m on my knees.” He took her hand, but stood on his own power. “And when I’m standing up.”
She rolled her brown eyes, but her cheeks developed a distinctive pink tint bright enough to appear even in the dim light. “Let’s go.”
And they did, forming a conga line of determination to survive, brains intact, until they reached the doorway. The good news: the hallway, though lacking in furniture to run across, was practically deserted. The bad news: it wasn’t totally empty.
Five zombies stood in a clump by the partially opened front door. The walking corpses were all that stood between them and the beanstalk.
“Okay, I’ll distract them,” Jax said. “You two make a break for it.”
