Page 54 of Zomromcom

Hobbled at their wrists or ankles, zombies weren’t especially difficult to kill.

Edie didn’t let herself think about it. She simply lashed out as hard as she could, cutting through their necks as quickly and cleanly as possible, then moved on to the next creature held in place by the Girl Explorers.

Beside her, Max wielded his sword in graceful, deadly arcs, each one producing a grunt from his chest and a headless zombie corpse at his feet.

Not too far away, Sabrina’s axe glinted in the firelight as she swung it with a two-handed grip and efficiently took down the creatures nearest to her position.

Across the little campfire, Kip and Lorraine were doing… something.

“How…” Edie paused to decapitate a zombie. “How’s…it…going, Lorrie?”

“Turns out, you can twist off their little heads like a soda cap!” the troll yelled. “It’s fun!”

“I’m getting hungry, though!” Kip added. “If my godsdamn cousin hadn’t mentioned a freaking buffet—”

“Sue me, bro!” Lorraine gave a pleased exclamation. “I’m really getting the whole motion down now! That one was easy!”

“Shit!” Kip suddenly yelled, all levity gone, and Edie whipped her head his way.

He was falling, hard. He landed on the ground with a wheezing, pained-sounding “ fuck ,” even as an unsecured zombie flew over his head, teeth and claws poised for throat-ripping.

In a flash, the troll was back on his feet.

“Good…work, Gwen!” He lunged for the creature who’d been trying to de-brain him. “Tripped by a root, just as you predicted!”

“ Edie ,” Max hollered, just as Kip clasped the zombie in his huge hands and ripped off its head with a crunching sound and a spray of yolky blood. “Behind you!”

Branches caught the wrists of the creature at Edie’s back while it was still mid-leap, and Edie directed a breathless thank-you toward the treetops after she cut off her attacker’s head.

Then there was nothing but cutting and blood and bursts of pain as the zombies kicked her with their unbound legs or clawed at her with their free hands while she killed them. It went on and on, terrible and unceasing, until…the zombie in front of her broke out of its wrist restraints.

She’d already cut about halfway through its neck, so she was able to finish the job before it lashed out at her, but the near miss was a bad sign. A really, really fucking bad sign.

Sure enough, Riley shouted down to them moments later. “We’re almost tapped out up here! Roughly two dozen hostiles left!”

That was far too many to handle if the Girl Explorers couldn’t restrain them. The five fighters were going to be overrun. Soon.

“Gwen, you’re up! Alert Starla when you’re ready!” Sabrina swung her axe with a panting yell. “Riley, one of your girls needs to get her down safely and silently!”

Edie didn’t hear Gwen’s descent from the tree or see her short journey to a spot deeper in the woods, which was a good thing. If the zombies pinpointed her location, a lone human who knew nothing about fighting wouldn’t last long.

The next creature only had one hand loosely bound by a branch, and as Edie began slicing through its neck, its viciously sharp claws raked across her ribs, gouging deeply enough that warm wetness began trickling down her side.

The initial lightning flash of agony turned into an intense, throbbing ache.

It was her first serious injury, and given the current turn of events, it would be far from her last.

She didn’t do more than gasp, but somehow Max knew. Maybe he was able to smell her blood, even through all the effluvia and smoke and body odor.

“ Edie ,” he roared.

It was a hoarse demand for information. For the sound of her voice to confirm that she was still alive and mostly okay.

“I’m…” Oh shit, breathing hurt now. “I’m good.”

The nearest zombie was writhing, twisting its ankle to free itself from a root and just about to succeed. With a cry, she swung at its neck and—missed. Because it wasn’t bound by anything at all anymore.

Its thighs bunched for a fatal leap, its snarl rang in her ears, and she stumbled backward on numb legs.

“Now!” Sabrina yelled.

The explosion rang through the night.

It was another of Edie’s ideas, using what they had on hand.

Large quantities of lye— her lye—in an old abandoned bathtub on the forest floor.

A simple wooden trough, swiftly built by Lorraine from scavenged floorboards, perched carefully but precariously on branches high above the tub.

The entire setup positioned a safe distance away, with a long, sturdy stick for Gwen to tip the trough, sending water pouring onto all the lye.

And then: Boom! Ringing ears. Startled cries and howls.

The extreme heat of the immediate, violent exothermic reaction set some neatly crisscrossed kindling aflame, and every single zombie that remained alive swung toward the site of the explosion and subsequent fire, completely distracted.

Including Edie’s current zombie. This time, she managed to remove its head, and everyone else dispatched the creatures closest to them too.

It wasn’t enough. There were still a dozen left, maybe, and their attention was beginning to return to their designated prey.

“We need to lure them closer to the compound and keep distracting them.” Sabrina sounded grim. “Set the fires, Gwen, and Starla will let you know if we need you back here!”

Edie hoped like hells the oracle was fast and silent in her work. If Gwen moved too slowly, there wouldn’t be any fighters left to take advantage of the distraction. Too noisily, and her athame would be her only protection from the predators stalking her.

“We’re almost there!” Lorraine yelled. “Let’s finish ’em off, bros!”

As another creature swiveled its head back Edie’s way, her cleaver felt like an anvil. She swung it anyway, chopping through taut flesh and tough sinew. Not bone.

She’d injured it, which would slow its movements. But she hadn’t killed it, and she’d also made it very, very angry.

Fuck. One more kick, and her legs would collapse beneath her.

Her arms were shaking, her head swimming from horror and blood loss, and no one could help her now.

Max, Sabrina, Lorraine, and Kip had their own battles to wage as they waited for Gwen to light another house on fire, somewhere closer to that gaping hole in Wall One, and set off more flares.

Edie was a sitting duck, and not the kind that swam in pools of gold ducats.

The creature’s garbled magnifique came from a mouth dripping saliva, and its yellowed teeth shone in the firelight as it stalked the final, necessary step closer. It leapt for her neck, and she slashed her cleaver in its direction, but she closed her eyes too, unable to watch her own death.

Nothing happened.

Her lids flew open, and there was Max, clamping one zombie’s jaw shut with a white-knuckled grip, the swing of his sword a graceful arc as he lopped off another zombie’s head. Her zombie’s head.

A third one was sprinting up on him from behind, and the sweet idiot wasn’t paying a fucking bit of attention, too concerned about her to do his damned job.

“Max!” she shrieked, thrusting her cleaver in the direction of his would-be killer.

Even as he turned—too late, he was going to be too late—flares shrieked into the night, while climbing flames illuminated in the distance, closer to the breach site. Gwen’s work.

And there was Gwen herself. Silhouetted by the flames, clearly visible.

Irresistible temptation, especially since the creatures’ current prey had proven troublesome.

The zombie behind Max had pivoted to face the new fire, to face Gwen, and Max managed to remove its head in a single swing, but the rest of the creatures—four now?—were suddenly gone. Loping at top speed toward a human woman with no knowledge of fighting, armed only with a small, sharp knife.

In the group’s absolute worst-case scenario—i.e.

, the scenario they were experiencing right this moment—they’d planned to lure the pack’s remnants closer to the compound with fires and flares in hopes they could drive the creatures back through the hole in the wall.

Then they’d intended to use Sabrina’s small store of remaining power to close that hole and maybe even collapse the compound’s structure on top of the zombies.

Which—like their fall into the pit—wouldn’t kill them outright, but should contain them until the main battle was over and Max and Sabrina could finish the job.

That wasn’t going to happen. The situation was too out of control for such tricky maneuvering. Either the last clutch of creatures died now, or they’d kill Gwen.

Even as they bounded toward her, all four—yes, definitely four—zombies kept looking back at the snacks they’d left behind, and it slowed them down a bit. Almost enough for Max to catch up to them, because he was sprinting in an inhuman blur, with everyone else running behind him.

Almost. He wasn’t going to make it in time.

And then Gwen cried out loudly enough to echo through the forest and collapsed where she stood. She didn’t move or make another sound as the zombies bounded closer and closer. Sixty feet away. Fifty. Forty.

Two more humanoid silhouettes appeared in front of the fire and scrambled to stand in front of the fallen oracle, weapons at the ready.

Okay. So now those people were going to die too, whoever they were, because they couldn’t fight off two zombies apiece and protect a seemingly helpless woman at the same time, and no one else was going to reach them before the attack began. Not even Max.

Each footfall was a stab of fire in her side, but Edie kept running, and as she drew closer, she could actually see what was happening.

Doug stood with his tire iron raised, shoulders square, ponytail flapping in the breeze. Belinda waited at his side, brandishing a wicked-looking knife.

“Hi, friends!” Doug called cheerfully, never taking his eyes off the incoming zombies. “If we live through this, we have fresh doughnuts to share!”