Page 54 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

Quickly, I shot one of the infected. Another two fell by someone else’s hand.

Five remained: two females, two large males, and one more slender Asian male. He was the fastest one and tackled Josh to the ground just as he had managed to get back up.

A few arrows were fired but missed their mark. Mine injured one of the males, piercing his throat. This slowed him down significantly, causing him to make nasty gurgling sounds as blood stained the front of his shirt.

“Don’t shoot!” I ordered the archers, my vocal cords grinding painfully in my throat with the attempted volume.

The furies were too close. Even I didn’t trust my aim.

“Here, come here! Hey!”

Not minding my surroundings anymore, I darted towards the struggle, trying in vain to attract the infected.

“No, you stay here! And be ready!”

Unmistakeably powerful hands grabbed my shoulders from behind, halting me forcefully in my tracks. Their grip hurt me more than their owner likely intended, and I yelped.

But Einar had already passed me by, reaching Josh and his adversaries in a heartbeat. Three of them were piled up on top of Josh.

Einar grabbed one of them savagely by her dyed hair with long, grown-out roots, turned her to face him with a brutish jerk, and shoved a knife through her eye socket.

In the meantime, the rotund male fury I had hit before staggered closer to the group, and I shot him in the head. He collapsed, twitching.

Einar pulled the other female fury off Josh. Hands gripping her firmly by the shoulder and the crotch, he lifted her above his head and then tossed her to the side as if she were nothing but a doll. He then did the same with the Asian male before tackling the remaining fury, a male much closer to his own size.

He tore him off Josh by grabbing the matted dark hair and frayed T-shirt collar. He then drove the cannibal’s face hard against his readied knee with a nasty crunch. Blood spurted out of the sorry remains of the fury’s nose.

Meanwhile, the female and the Asian got back up. I shot the female, but the Asian rushed Einar, and the latter fought both the infected single-handedly. Josh lay on the ground nearby, horribly still.

Einar managed to climb on top of the Asian male and held him in place by kneeling on his neck. But he struggled with the bigger cannibal, barely managing to keep him at bay. Several times he tried to reach for the knife fastened to his belt but failed to do so because the infected always managed to take advantage of Einar’s slacking hold on him, his voracious mouth instantly reaching towards Einar’s neck, teeth brandished.

“Hold him still!” I shouted to Einar, marching closer.

Einar had one hand around the infected’s neck and the other on his shoulder, pushing him to the ground. All the while, the Asian thrashed violently under his knee, face turning purple. I didn’t dare aim for the larger male fury’s head because he jerked constantly and was too close to Einar.

Instead, I circled around so that I faced his back, the knots of his spine outlined by the close-fitting, dirty shirt. I fired several shots into the vertebral column, and the creature collapsed, legs buckling underneath him.

As soon as his head gained some distance from Einar, I put an arrow through it, and he finally lay still. Einar then brandished his already bloodied knife and, holding the Asian to the ground, he slashed his throat with expeditious brutality. The head nearly came off, blood pooled around, and all was quiet.

My knees gave out and I crashed to the ground, shaking, my breath coming in sobs. Einar’s own breathing was ragged, and he swore profusely in what I assumed was the Icelandic language. There were multiple scratches on his chest and shoulders, and his tee was torn. He looked at me as if noticing for the first time that I was there and reached me in a few strides.

I flinched instinctively, the memory of his savagery a little too fresh in my mind. He knelt close enough for me to be able to discern the acidic smell of terror on him. But he didn’t touch me, ever mindful of the risk of infection he was himself exempt from. Instead, he spoke to me softly with an uncharacteristically gentle look in his eyes. But my brain was too wrung out to attribute his words any meaning whatsoever. He may as well have continued talking in Icelandic.

“Josh!”

It was Dave’s voice that finally made my mind snap out of its dysfunctional overdrive and rush towards the motionless figure. Others, including Dave, were already kneeling by it.

Josh was alive. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his breathing the sound of a handsaw cutting through wood. We all pretended not to notice that he had wet himself.

“Are you alright, man?” Einar asked. “Are you bitten anywhere? Scratched?”

“No ... no ...” Josh sat up tentatively, then stood up, his legs wobbly but reliable.

He let us examine him thoroughly, lifting the fabric of his sweatshirt and stretching the various folds of his trousers to demonstrate that there were no punctures. Miraculously, there were indeed no signs of injury on him. I let out a choked sob that I had no awareness of holding.

As if in response, Josh himself started crying, the tears rapidly forming trails in the dirt particles on the smooth, dark skin of his face. Dave hugged him.

“Einar.” He looked him squarely in the face over Joshua’s trembling shoulder. “Thanks for saving his life, yeah?”