* * *
Mitchell had no idea why, twenty feet away, the tide of undead had turned from his Team and toward the Tree, washing over anyone in its path, but he wasn’t concerned with reasons. Priority one was killing the Brown brothers. Priority two was killing everything else.
Someone had already started on priority one. Mitchell wasn’t sure how, but the gas tank had flown from beneath the Tree and crushed Harold. It hadn’t exploded, but nothing was moving and Mitchell was content to deal with one problem at a time.
A cow mooed at him as it passed.
“Right,” he said to Truman and Skylar. “Browns. You know what to… do.”
A half-man, half-wolf silhouette atop the Tree raised his furry head and uttered a short howl, then leapt over the retreating zombies and landed on feet and clawed hands. Richard remained on all fours as he crept forward. Apparently he knew they had to hit his heart and wasn’t going to give them the chance.
Mitchell swung the scythe, but the werewolf ducked it, grabbed the snaith with both hands, and snapped it in half. Mitchell had already let go, grabbed his rifle with one hand, and brought it up to fire.
Richard lunged forward. Razor-sharp teeth closed half an inch from Mitchell’s fingers. The whole barrel of the rifle was gone.
When Mitchell had recovered from the shock, he found that his body had fled on instinct. He looked around to find Richard on all fours a few steps behind, and threw what was left of his L85 at him.