down.
Be it our weight on top, or their weight pressing at the bottom, the wooden barrier that had protected us for a decade cracked and bent. The sound of gunfire ceased, replaced with shouting as everyone scrambled to back up. Bodies poured down from the top of the wall and scattered over the grass. There were arms flailing, mouths moving.
A section of the wall toppled clean over with a loud thump.
The living were quiet as gravity did its job, staring in shock as figure after figure began to shuffle through the opening. The dead had entered Junction.
The mere sight of their approach struck terror through my very being. This was real danger, not only to me but to everyone I knew and cared for. Wait.
Dad...
Cole...
I didn’t see them, everyone was running backward in the grass toward the town.
“F orm rank and hold the line!” Rylie shouted, his voice barely carrying above the chaos. My head whipped around while I got in formation. Why didn’t I see my father? Cole should stick out like a sore thumb with his dual katana yet in the dark night I couldn’t make him out in the line. Where were they? Had they been bitten? A thousand questions poured through my mind, each a picture of countless horrors I couldn’t put to words. I saw the man on the wall, his face replaced with Cole’s eaten alive. No. It couldn’t...
Stop it Liv.
I took a deep breath. Whatever their fate, I would know soon enough. Now I had to deal with what was in front of me. The deadhead’s had begun to spread out as they left the breach, coming at us in a V formation. Due to their various injuries the things seemed to be joining into three strong waves; those with nimble legs, the stiff and the dragging. Good. The more spacing between them the higher our chances with hand to hand.
Sliding in beside Ben I pulled the borrowed machete from my hip. Testing the weight in my tired hands. My fingertips quivered around the hilt willfully denying my steady command.
Somewhere on the line a war cry was born. I don’t know who started it, I only felt my own mouth move to join the call. As they poured toward us, we countered their moan tenfold. A sound not to intimidate them, the dead can’t be intimidated, but to rally our will.
This was our house. We built it, shed blood for it, and died for it.
Our house was not falling. Not now. Not ever.
As one, we charged.
In the heat of the onslaught, my mind shut down the sections of reason and emotion. Existing for the singular purpose of slaughter I became the emissary of true death. The knife in my hand met flesh upon flesh, black blood flew through the air, splashing my clothes and the grass beneath. My blade focused on only the quick retract target areas; eye sockets, soft flesh under the chin. At my feet they crumbled, released into whatever peace awaited them off this earth.
Then they began to stack.
I backed up from the deadheads at my feet, my maneuver room was getting limited.
Last thing I needed was to trip over an arm and leave myself vulnerable. Something cut through the air to my left.
“Shit!”
One of the guys I didn’t know looked horrified as he raised his rapier. He had missed my arm by a fraction of an inch. Dumbfounded, I stared at him for a moment while I steadied my footing. In that brief moment of clarity my brain registered every detail of the strangers face in high definition. The stubble on his squared chin, the thick wave in his blood matted mahogany hair, heavy circles under mud colored eyes. His mouth that was moving to ask me if I was okay. Managing a nod I chastised myself for being so immersed in my element that I had paid no attention to my surroundings. I guess I was damned lucky he didn’t slice through my shoulder. Still I wondered, where did he find a friggen rapier?
The moan in front of me snapped me back; six foot two, nose less with torn lips and a