We moved together, fighting back against the Feeders that wanted to munch on our brains. My gun clicked empty and I knew I was out. Before I could even voice my concern, Hendrix pulled another one from his back pocket. We’d been collecting them as we moved through the forest, but our supplies were super limited.
“I’m nearly out!” I told Vaughan, who stood at my back.
“You’re not the only one. We’re going to have to move!”
My gun clicked empty again and I dropped it to the floor, feeling helplessly useless. I hated it.
“Take Page!” Hendrix shouted. “Trade places with Nelson.”
That sounded less useless than what I was doing now. Nelson handed Page to me and I let her crawl around me until she was latched on my back. I patted her arms and helped her adjust until she wasn’t choking the life out of me. I’d slipped my backpack around front and felt uncomfortable but at least I could help in some way.
Kane turned around and eyed me in my new position. “I’m going to get Miller.”
“No,” I whispered. I didn’t even know if he heard me. I couldn’t put force behind the words. I couldn’t even put thought behind it.
“I love you,” he said in return.
Before I could say anything, he took off through the gunfire. I watched in awe as he ran straight for his father but didn’t get hit. I thought he might be a superhero at first, but then I realized Matthias had ordered them not to hurt him.
Matthias was up again and apparently in working order. His bicep was tied with someone’s shirt and he held his shoulder at an awkward angle, but he was not dead.
Bummer.
Matthias held his gun at Kane and said something I couldn’t understand. Kane replied and I watched in stunned fascination while the two of them held a conversation through the bloodshed around them. Matthias hadn’t lost nearly enough men for me to feel confident that Kane would survive a heart-to-heart with his father.
And just as I had that thought, three more guns swung at Kane and trained directly on his chest. My heart jumped to my throat and I stood paralyzed with no way to help him.
“He’ll be fine,” Page assured me.
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s not dead yet,” she answered simply. “And because he convinced you to like him. That must mean he is a very good arguer.”
I smiled, despite our circumstances. Sometimes Page’s young logic was absolutely amazing.
Also, right.
Kane elbowed his way through the men with guns and snatched up Miller. Kane tossed him over his shoulder and tried to push back out. The guards closed in and wouldn’t let him through.
Kane whirled on his dad and said something that appeared very threatening. Matthias threw his head back and laughed. He raised his own gun. He pointed it at his son’s face and said something equally as threatening.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Gunfire popped and hit everywhere around me. Zombies attacked. Men went down, felled by other men. And I stood in the tree cover, helpless and with a child on my back.
The argument between Kane and his father continued to grow more and more heated. I held my breath as I waited for one of them to explode. It was impossible to focus on anything besides those two, even as Feeders attacked all around me, even as gun shots fired through the trees.
“I’m going to go after him,” Hendrix’s voice came from my left.
“Matthias?”
“Kane,” he said.
“He’s just trying to help,” I argued.
“So I am.”
Before I could argue with him, he took off across the clearing. I screamed at him to stop, but he didn’t listen. A new fear gripped me.
The battle played out in my head a hundred different ways. I pictured Hendrix shooting Matthias, then Kane. I pictured Hendrix killing Kane and then Matthias. I pictured Kane gunning Hendrix down before he could cross the clearing. Or Matthias’s men turning on Hendrix.
Instead, this was what happened. Vaughan and Nelson covered Hendrix and by the time he fought his way to Kane, there were only ten or so men still alive from Matthias’s side. Blood, guts, brains and everything disgusting littered Hendrix’s wake.
The remaining men were forced to handle the Zombie attack, so Hendrix was left alone. And he didn’t waste time. He barged into Kane and Matthias’s argument abruptly, shoving his gun to Matthias’s temple.
One of Matthias’s men realized what happened and tried to turn around and shoot Hendrix, but a Feeder found the hole in their defensive line and attacked him. The terribly fast Feeder sunk his teeth into the gunman with a savage hunger, ravaging the man within seconds.
I blinked and it that time span the guard next to him had shot both the Feeder and the infected human. The rest of the guards had no choice but to ignore Matthias and the gun pointed at his head or every last one of them was going to be overrun.
Luckily for them, they had a stockpile of guns and ammo to work with.
Our side of the war wasn’t that fortunate.
With Hendrix’s gun at his temple, Matthias suddenly became more cooperative. However, it was impossible to tell what was going on with all the shouting, screaming, Feeder-shrieking and gunfire.
I did know the second Hendrix had enough. I watched tension ripple over his body, each muscle tightening with fury. He let out one focusing breath, pressed the barrel of his gun deep into Matthias’s temple and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Hendrix was out of ammo!
My stomach clenched tightly and I forced myself to keep my eyes open!
Both Matthias and Hendrix had stilled in a state of shock. Matthias had expected to die and Hendrix had hoped to finally have some justice. Neither of them moved as they took in what happened with opposite reactions.
Thankfully, Kane seemed more prepared. He didn’t hesitate to pull his trigger next. When nothing happened again, I nearly laughed. This couldn’t seriously be happening! We finally had a shot at Matthias and both of our weapons were empty! Unbelievable.
Matthias wasn’t as shocked this time. A slow smile spread across his face and he lifted his own gun with the satisfaction of a man who had already won.
I started screaming at Kane and Hendrix to run. Hot, fearful tears pushed against my eyes and my voice quickly became hoarse from how much force I put behind my shouting. Vaughan tried to move forward, but the Feeders had increased in this area now that there weren’t enough men to defend against them and plenty of freshly dead bodies.
I fought the urge to sink to the ground and put my hands over my ears. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a way to save us all!
At the very last moment, Hendrix surprised us all with the one weapon Matthias hadn’t expected. Hendrix punched him in the face and then in rapid succession, right in the arm where he’d been shot. Matthias flailed backward onto his back. His gun discharged, but the shot was wild and inaccurate.
Kane and Hendrix took off running at us, sharing an equally surprised look. As soon as we saw them coming, the rest of our group took off too.
Plenty of other guns clicked empty; we were officially defenseless in a forest filled with hungry Feeders and an army of men with shoot-to-kill orders.
This day just took a serious turn for the worse.
Chapter Four
We ran from the mayhem in the clearing straight at a small horde of Feeders coming directly at us. Only Vaughan, Nelson, King and Haley still had ammo left. They used it quickly to destroy the immediate threat in front of us.
The Feeders seemed to sense which one of us could kill them, and attacked the rest of us. I still had Page on my back and as strong as I wanted to believe I was, she definitely slowed me down. She would have been better off with one of the Parkers, but we didn’t have time to pull over and switch drivers.
Kane and Hendrix eventually caught up to us and ran next to me in the back of the group. Kane had Miller over his shoulder so he was weigh
ted down too. I could see that he was at least awake, but not in any shape to fight or walk on his own. He groaned and winced with every step Kane took.
The only good thing about being in the back of the group was that the guys with guns could take out the Feeders before they got to us. The unfortunate thing was that while we traversed through the uneven, clustered forest, the space between those in front and us in the back grew.
Hendrix stayed next to me the entire time, though I knew he was frustrated by our pace. I also knew it wasn’t just me that he wanted to protect, but Page too.
“I have to take her, Reagan.” He reached for Page. “Or we’re going to lose them.”
I nodded, too tired to argue. We slowed down and Hendrix pulled her from my back into his arms. He swung her around to his back and we took off again.
We reached another clearing just as Vaughan and everyone else made it to the opposite side. Hendrix whistled loudly, and the rest of the group turned to see how far we’d fallen behind. Vaughan raised his hand, and everybody stopped. They were going to wait for us.
We raced into the clearing just as Zombies exploded from our right. A massive horde of them. They drooled blackish mucous, and their blood red eyes promised horrific ways to die. I bit back a scream as they trained their starved, emaciated, decaying bodies on us and sprinted toward us with inhuman speed. Their noxious, rotting smell was the only precursor we had to the attack.
Vaughan shouted something unintelligible just as Tyler’s scream ripped through the late afternoon. Gunshots followed soon after, and I realized they were under attack too. They couldn’t save us because they were busy saving themselves.
Shit!
“This way!” Kane shouted as he veered to the left and ran as fast as he could into the copse of trees over there.
Hendrix and I followed him without any other option. As long as there weren’t Zombies over there we had just a half-chance more of surviving than running straight into the horde and hoping we were all immune and that the Feeders got full before they ate us entirely.
When I wasn’t in danger, I spent a lot of time thinking about dying. Not surprising during the Zombie Apocalypse, but it seriously took up a lot of brain space. However, when I was in it, when I was really in it, and seconds away from actually dying, I didn’t think about dying at all. The only thought in my head was about living. I wanted to live. I wanted to survive. I wanted to outrun these monsters and make it through the day.
I pushed myself harder than I ever had. Sweat poured down my face and neck; my muscles ached, and my lungs wheezed, but I kept running, I kept pushing forward.
I felt sick with worry for the rest of our group, but I couldn’t let that weigh me down right now. I had to keep going. We had a plan. We would meet up at the bunker. We just had to get there!
“Do you know where the bunker is?” I shouted to Kane and Hendrix, both laden with their younger sibling.
If we could just run fast enough to get there, we could shut the door. I knew from experience that the Feeders couldn’t get in. We just had to outrun them until then.
Kane nodded, “I saw it earlier. I’m turned around now though.”
Shit.
We kept running. I could feel the Feeders hot on our heels. My mind played tricks on me; I could feel the hot Zombie breath on the back of my neck or the scrape of claws I knew was coming. Terror and adrenaline pulsed through me and encouraged my feet to keep moving.
I tried not to trip on the rocky, uneven ground, but I didn’t always succeed. A hand always appeared to help me up, though. Either Kane or Hendrix reached out to steady me. And I tried to do the same for them.
The Feeders ran faster and faster, spurred on by the promise of a living feast. We pushed our bodies beyond human limits, beyond anything and everything we thought possible. We had to.
It was outrun them or die.
We ran for what felt like hours… like years of my life. My breath came out in rasping pants and sweat blurred my vision, stinging my eyes. There was no sign of Vaughan or Haley. There was no sign of anything except tangled trees and the screeching calls of Feeders behind us.
I tripped over something and went sprawling forward. My jeans tore as I scraped my knees, and my palms too. I rolled over and kicked out at whatever was right behind me.
I hit only air. I opened my eyes and realized the Feeders were farther behind me than I thought. I’d tripped over a dead body.
Two dead bodies.
A gun lay to my left.
I picked it up and jumped to my feet, ignoring the sharp pain in my left ankle and my bleeding knees. Hendrix and Kane shouted something at me and even though I couldn’t process what they said, I turned as quickly as I could, and we took off again. Kane bent down and scooped up an abandoned hunting knife just as a Feeder leaped for him.
I turned to fire at the Feeder, terrified I would hit Kane or Miller. I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Freaking safety!
The gun was unfamiliar; I fumbled around with panic because I couldn’t figure it out.
“Give it to me!” Hendrix demanded.
I gladly passed it over, but it was too late. Kane had dropped Miller and used the knife to stab through the Feeder’s eye. He pulled it out and plunged it into the other one. Hendrix figured out the gun and sprayed the advancing front line of Zombies.
Hendrix gave us just enough time to get Miller back into Kane’s arms and give us another short head start.
It was harder to keep up the pace this time. I’d stopped once, and now my legs knew how tired I was.
Thankfully, the trees started to look vaguely familiar. The bunker had to be around here somewhere.
I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Almost.
We came to a cliff wall and raced along the edge, desperately trying to find the bunker door. We turned a corner, and the forest cleared out into a long, familiar meadow.
“There it is!” Hendrix shouted. The camouflaged door could barely be seen from this distance, but it was there.
We all pushed forward with renewed energy; our goal was so close. Maybe Vaughan was already inside. Maybe they were waiting for us. If we could just get there. If we could just make it these last few feet.
Just as hope took root in my chest and began to spread through my blood, giving me the much-needed energy to sprint forward, everything fell to pieces. Hope died as quickly as it had bloomed.
In front of us appeared another horde, cutting off our path, our escape and our haven.
“Son of a bitch!” I screamed.
Hendrix skidded to an abrupt stop. I nearly ran into him as I tried to stop too. Kane slowed down a little in front of us. He looked back and forth between the two incoming hordes, an expression of bleak awareness on his handsome face.
There wasn’t time to think. There wasn’t time to panic. This was it. This was the end.
I looked at Hendrix, then at Kane. I looked at Miller, who was now leaned against Kane, exhausted and barely conscious. I looked at my beautiful Page that could survive a bite, but not hordes of Feeders.
If Vaughan and Haley were in the bunker, they wouldn’t even see this. They wouldn’t see how we met our gruesome end or that we were so very close to safety.
They would find our picked-to-the-bone bodies tomorrow morning and know they maybe could have helped us but didn’t even know we needed help.
All of these thoughts flashed through my head in a second. The Feeders moved with their unnatural speed, not mindful at all of the branches they tripped over or the dips in the ground that faltered their already uneven steps.
Kane took three rushed strides back to us and dumped Miller on me. Miller immediately began to slide to the ground, so I used whatever strength I had left and helped him stay upright.
My mind couldn’t process what was happening. There was too much all around me. Too much going on. I was in too much danger and peril and my thoughts flew around my head in tangled, sticky clumps of nonsense.
Kane hel
d my face in his big, rough hands and looked at me with something so sweet that I immediately started crying, even though I didn’t understand what was going on.
“I love you, Reagan,” he told me. His words hit me hard, straight through my chest and into my soul.
“I love you too,” I told him. It felt so good to say those words. It felt like freedom, and release and healing.
He closed his eyes and savored those words. His face relaxed into pure bliss, and a beautiful smile transformed his expression. Kane wasn’t panicked or afraid; he was somewhere else, somewhere I wasn’t.
He took his glasses off and handed them to me. He met my gaze again, and those steely gray eyes were wet with unshed tears. “You saved me,” he said. “You gave me salvation and something to live for. Please don’t forget me.”
“Why would I?” I demanded quickly. The Feeders were closer than ever. I didn’t want to give up. No matter how near death we were, I didn’t want to say goodbye. I turned my attention to Hendrix, who shared his attention between us and the oncoming Feeders.
Kane coaxed my focus back to him by gently pinching my chin with his thumb and forefinger. “One more time? Please, say it one more time.”
“Why?”
A soft smile touched his lips, “I want you to think the best of me, Reagan. Just once. Please say it.”
I didn’t hesitate to give him what he wanted. “I love you.”
His smile grew. “I’ve lived just long enough.” He turned around and looked at the two separate hordes that were melding into one giant one. He looked at me over his shoulder one more time and promised. “No matter how I lived this life, you made it worth it, Reagan.”
“Kane, no,” I pleaded, realization suddenly dawning on me. “Don’t.”
He didn’t listen to me. I tried to grab him, hold him back, but Miller was in my way. I dropped him. I felt a little insensitive as he collapsed to the ground, but I couldn’t worry about him now.