Page 6 of Between Two Thorns

Baby's First Bar Fight

“T here’s the bitch and her guard dog!”

A voice, all too familiar to Rose now, brought her kiss quest spiel to an abrupt end. Her insides churned with unease.

Chad came prowling around the corner, flanked by his posse.

Del had already pivoted and squared up. His stance was wide and defensive. Rose noticed for the first time that his legs looked bowed and his shoulders hunched. He looked intimidating even without his fists clenching at the end of his dark green sleeves.

“Del,” Sam warned in a low voice as he shot a look at the younger man and moved to his side. The EMT had also stepped deftly in front of Rose, who still had her ankle propped up in the back of the ambulance. “Guessin’ this is the guy you slugged?”

The dirty blond barely lifted his chin in acknowledgement. And Rose thought he looked rather smug about it, too.

Chad spit a glob of saliva and blood into the dirty, unpaved parking lot.

“Whoa, hold on, we’re not going to fight here, are we?” the redhead demanded, her question directed at Sam’s half-turned back. Though the tight uniform accentuated the tension in his body.

“No, we’re not,” he said, just barely raising his arm in front of her. As if she was the one who needed to be held back. “Rose, call the cops, just in case.”

She actually thought their odds were pretty good. Del seemed like a rough and tumble kinda guy that you didn’t mess with. And everything about Sam whispered that he was or had been a soldier.

Still... she wasn’t one to take risks—other than coming out here tonight.

Rose wrenched her eyes away from the slowly growing audience behind Chad’s now worryingly broad torso. She shoved her hand into her pocket—and barely got into the first knuckle.

Shit.

Goddamn fashion industry freaking fake pockets!

Rose patted down both of her hips to the hem of her shorts, and down her back for good measure—nothing.

She almost grabbed to see if it was down her bra—before remembering she never put her phone down her shirt before in her life.

Which meant it was still in the truck.

Where the hell was Fred?

“Uh, I don’t have my—holy shit.”

Rose had been so preoccupied looking around herself and the back of the ambulance, she hadn’t noticed the footsteps still streaming out of the bar. And all around them.

They were about to be surrounded. These mature, adult college students were all cheering, “Fight. Fight. Fight!” In drunken discordance.

“You and I got something to settle, methhead.” Chad leered.

Del squared his jaw and curled his fists at his sides. He was standing deceptively still as Chad and his guys attempted to circle him like coyotes. More like jackals. Coyotes were cowards—but Del wasn’t falling for the bait. He stayed dangerously still.

And while the other guys might try to feint closer, the green-eyed guy didn’t move.

“Del,” Sam said, low and gentle, and like he was trying not to startle a baby deer. Or a cornered wolf.

The older man put up a hand, reaching to the younger’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze near the back of his neck.

Rose saw Del tense at the touch, then slowly let his muscles melt into it, only to curl up again when he looked away from Sam. Like the younger was suppressing an impulse to do something… or maybe fighting with more than one instinct at once.

But Sam had already stepped in front of Del, too. He walked into the center of the cleared circle, that wall of bodies from the dance floor now ringing the scene and writhing again. Though this time it wasn’t with the coordinated sway to music. It was with jittery anticipation of action. Rose swore there were more people here than the Bone he sure as hell didn’t look or act all that old. Besides, the silver in his trimmed stubble aligned perfectly in a way that emphasized his cheekbones.

Very, very attractive.

Sam shook his head. “Oh, I ain’t scared of some kid acting too big for his britches.”

The echoing “Ooh” sound followed them as Sam closed the distance between himself and Chad with an undeniable swagger.

He showed no signs of being scared by the youngster threatening to take a swing at him.

The wolf-whistle she heard from the onlookers could have come from her own lips—because that was damn hot.

Chad looked like he was boiling in his own skin. He was absolutely burning up at the implication and the audacity of another man to have confidence in front of him. One who appeared to be older—and shorter, too.

The douche then did something that was absolutely predictable. He hauled back with a grunt and made to swing, telegraphing the action with every pull of his taught muscles.

Sam beat him to the punch. Literally.

And sank his balled fist into the young hot-head’s gut. In a swift move, the old man EMT undercut the towering figure of Chad and sent him stumbling backward into the sea of people.

Sam moved away from him, ensuring that there was a safe distance between them before looking back in their direction—a smirk in his dark brown eyes.

Chad’s buddies were picking him up from the ground and dusting him off, the wall of humans moving symbiotically again to get him back on his feet.

“You’re gonna pay for that, you son of a bitch—” Chad roared, kicking off dust clouds in his wake as he charged after Sam. Going to tackle him from behind—the coward!

Rose jumped up from the back of the ambulance and squealed as her wrapped foot refused to support her. It wasn’t as bad as the splintering pain before—but it still knocked her back and making her feel like an idiot when both Del and Sam turned towards her. The older’s back was left unguarded.

So Chad could lob himself forward like a human cheap shot.

Del grabbed his friend around the upper arm and pulled him out of the way.

The blond man went sailing past him, plowing into the people gathered at the far side of the circle that had cleared for the fight.

This time, they didn’t catch him.

Chad landed heavily , with all his weight, on one person. A woman who was already swaying before. She looked distinctly green around the gills—maybe she had already been drinking a little too much.

Because neither she nor any of the people gathered around her had the reflexes to help her dodge the impact.

Chad’s enormous body fell on top of hers with a sickening crunch.

And a gasp silenced the onlookers.

***

“Oh my God, fuck!” Chad pushed himself up on his arms, his hands in the dirt as he lifted himself off of the crushed woman. Her hair had fallen all over her face—and to Rose, her torso looked horrifyingly flat.

Rose barely made it out of Sam’s way as he darted back to the ambulance , grabbing a reflective red bag from the step beside her, snapping at people to move with a ringing authority of the only person with the wherewithal to move.

No one around the woman did. They all seemed to be frozen, stock still, staring.

“Slowly.” Sam grabbed Chad’s shoulder, so he didn’t jerk away and cause anyone any further injury. The EMT’s eyes were on the woman’s chest and moving down to her pelvis, seeing what was broken—it looked like everything.

Rose hobbled over, clutching Del’s arm.

She could hear the woman groaning in pain, breaths just rattling out between her lips.

The tangle of brunette hair, matted with dirt, lifted a hand, her one arm shaking and twitching and trembling. It fell limp onto Chad’s shoulder.

Then, she jerked. Long enough for Rose to think that the woman was having a seizure—until she sank her pitch black teeth into Chad’s neck.

There was an impossibly long moment, somehow no longer than a heartbeat, where confusion descended like a fog over the crowd. Like a thick curtain had fallen on a stage play, and the audience was so stunned that applause never came.

No movement, no sound, not even from Chad—maybe because his windpipe was no longer—

A gurgle of blood from his lips and broke the silent spell. The woman—the thing—pulled back with the rending sound of ripping flesh. Spraying blood from his corroded artery with a sickly splash.

The surreality broke. Panic. Screaming. Trampling of feet as people ran for their lives.

The crowd split—half chaotic and running. But the others… didn’t move at all. Because the far side of the circle of bodies wasn’t people at all.

Rose Woods didn’t have to think—those were zombies.

And, once that the first one tasted flesh, they all moved like a wave. Grabbing at people, clawing at flesh, trying to sink those blackened teeth into anyone and anything.

“Sam! C’mon!” Del growled out, launching after the older man, grabbing him by his arms to yank him back.

The man had frozen when the bite had happened. Blood had spattered over him and it was like it robbed him of all motion.

Del had to move him.

Sam reanimated. His voice came back to him, and he was shouting at her to climb up before them.

Rose didn’t even know who grabbed her around the middle. But powerful arms were dragging her into the back of the ambulance.

They scrambled over the gurney as Rose tried to pull her legs out of the way and Del moved her.

She scrambled on top of a cabinet as Sam climbed into the back of the ambulance. He just got one foot up onto the back step when a snarl ripped from behind him.

A man this time, more green than flesh-colored, with veins bursting from his skin like strangling vines, had the paramedic by the pant leg.

And more were swarming to grab on.

Del scrambled, kicking up onto the gurney. “Get down!” He yelled at Sam, grabbing the fronts of the cabinets and shoving with his legs. Rose kicked out her good ankle to help him.

Together, they sent the heavy metal bed into the horde of monsters.

Rose could almost hear the crunch, from the way the zombies snapped and seemed to burst with neon green flecks of dust.

Sam was free and slamming the door.

Rose squealed—an arm was caught in the door. And now it was inside the back of the ambulance with them.

She might pass out.

Sam vaulted over into the driver’s seat as Rose clung to the back of it, slapping the faux leather urgently. “Drive, drive, drive, drive, drive!” she urged, shoving forward until Del pulled her over into the seat with him.

Sam turned, cranking the bus; the engine revved and the sirens automatically sounded.

Rose saw humans flinching outside, covering their ears, but the greenish creatures didn’t even seem bothered.

“Go, Sam, drive!!” she yelled.

His hands were on the wheel but his knuckles were turning white and the hair on his tanned arms was raised. “I can’t, I’ll hit—someone, everyone.”

“You’re not hitting someone’s. Those are fucking zombies!” Rose thundered at him, pushing up from Del’s lap into the middle of the bench.

“How do you know—”

“Have you ever seen a movie in your freaking life!? Drive!” Rose leaped forward, launching herself as best she could with her wrapped foot, stomping her heel onto the accelerator pedal.

The whole rig jolted, spinning on the dirt before it gained purchase, and lurched forward.

Bodies crashed and crunched into the front of the ambulance.

Sam grabbed the wheel, steering hard out of the way of people as best he could, though someone still flew across the hood. The noise was horrendous. In a way that scraped against her skull and felt like it would take hold of Rose’s brain.

They careened off into the desert, zombies falling from the roof and clinging to the sides.

And they didn’t stop until all was dark and quiet.