A horrible fate.

I sucked in a deep breath and sprang into action.

Not toward Dave. I just couldn’t. I ducked under Saylor’s other arm.

“Get out of here,” he said. “You guys have a better chance. Take Palmeri and get out of here. Fight a way through them.”

“We’re all getting out of here,” I said. It couldn’t be true and didn’t even sound realistic when I said it out loud. Fairytale or not, I committed. “Now fucking help us, help us!”

Saylor’s jaw tensed. He set his foot down, placed weight on his injured leg and winced. He manned up and hobbled with some speed.

Dave grunted, turned, and slashed his blade as if it was a Samurai sword with only an eight-inch reach. I didn’t stop him. He ran into the converging mass. With a swipe, he sliced open a throat, drove the blade into an ear, and stuck it into a third zombie’s Adam’s apple.

“Chase, behind you,” Dave said. He fought, killed, and was still able to warn me.

“Hold him,” I said, not waiting for Palmeri to acknowledge.

I spun around. The burnt zombie closest to me had her arms out, and what was left of her mouth was open. The blackened skin peeled, flaking off her face. A black tongue darted out of her mouth, licking at air the way an iguana or snake might, as if blind, and it used that muscle to sense prey in the area.

With a slash, I chopped the tongue out of its mouth, and heard it plop into a puddle of mud. The thing stepped on its own tongue without losing a sluggish step toward me.

Grabbing it by the hair, I pulled the head forward and drove my foot into its gut. With it doubled over, I slammed my blade to the hilt into the back of its neck, and twisted.

Looking up, I saw more zombies coming. We were definitely surrounded. My breathing was quick and shallow. Sweat dripped from my armpits. I felt claustrophobic. My eyes darted left and right, but I did not see a way out of this. No easy way.

I pulled out my knife. The zombie woman collapsed in a heap of dead carcass at my feet. I stepped around it to the side and used my elbow like a battering ram smashing it into the head of a hospital-gowned creature. Through a solid punch into the jaw of another, and used the blade to disconnect most of its head from the rest of its body.

I heard the others behind me, all engaged in a fight for survival.

One of those fast zombies charged from around a corner, knocking the slower shuffling dead from its path. I saw it, but could not react. My knife was buried deep into the flesh of a beast and I could not remove it. I let go of the handle and threw my hands up, which was the only way to defend myself from the attack.

A gunshot rang out.

In mid-flight, the fast zombie dropped, as if a bird shot out of the sky.

At the next set of apartments was someone with a rifle.

There was no time to yell out a thank you. I reached down, yanked my blade free and punched it between the eyes of the next gowned zombie. Holding the thing by an ear, I pulled my blade free, and the ear off of its head.

More shots came from whoever it was on the opposite side of the zombies. With deadly aim, he dropped creature after creature. He walked towards us as he fired. He used his rifle completely different from the way I had. I pressed the trigger like a person with an incurable twitch. He took single shots, hit a target, and then went on to the next.

I knew who it was, who it had to be. Not sure why, but I felt relieved.

As Spade got closer, the zombies around us got more dead.

I ran my shoulder into a zombie’s back. It had turned from me and had been walking toward Spade. My knee crunched into its spine as we hit the ground. I ran the blade across the back of its neck, raised it high, and holding it in both hands brought it home. My hand shook as the sharp teeth on the steel chewed through its spinal cord.Spade held out a hand and pulled me up. “We’re out of ammo,” I said.

“I’m just about out, too.”

There was no time, but I still wondered where Chatterton and Vitale were. Feared the worst. Got to a point where hoping for the best just didn’t seem to make sense anymore.

Dave and Palmeri held their own. Spade and I joined their end of the fight. We ran past Saylor, who held his knife close to his chest. He must be out of ammunition as well. He appeared ready to battle anything that got close, and I’ll bet thankful nothing had yet.

It resembled a barroom brawl. Punches thrown, kicks delivered. Dave head-butted a zombie, then crashed his elbow into the face of one behind him. Palmeri could scrap. She grabbed at arms, and broke bones with her knees. Thought I saw some martial arts training in her moves. Nothing Jackie Chan worthy, but by the speed and fluidity, it was evident.

The quicker we clear the dead the faster I could get back to my kids. With that in mind, that solitary inspiration, I kicked down at the top of a zombie’s knee. The crunch of bone and cartilage was loud. The thing didn’t cry out, but it crumbled. I stepped on its back. Pulled on its hair; ran the blade across its throat fast, hard, and again, before shoving the blade to the hilt through the temple. An eyeball popped from the socket, perhaps making room for the passing by of the blade’s serrated edge.

Saylor screamed.

I looked up. He was down with two zombies on him. He stabbed at one of them repeatedly. The blade punctured the thing’s side. Intestines spilled out. The zombie kept at him with mouth open and teeth bared.

The way Saylor’s arm was almost pinned, there wasn’t much more he could do. Without bullets to destroy the brains, simply slitting a throat or stabbing them repeatedly was as useless as blowing a hole in their chest with a shotgun. Had to stop the head, the brains, because all other efforts were pointless.

My feet fought for traction. The cold muddy ground was like ice. As I made my way toward him, I watched the second zombie, bite the lobe from Saylor’s ear. It tore at the flabby flesh and tugged at it. The chewing is what disgusted me most. It gnashed teeth on Saylor’s lobe, tongue licking at its lips to swipe at spilling blood.

Saylor screamed and screamed. Partly from the pain of the bite, I assumed, but mostly from anger. Angry he’d been bitten, and angry he couldn’t do shit to get the zombies off him.

I dropped to a knee in front of it. The thing looked up at me, let out a guttural roar and hiss. I saw a small flab of lobe on its tongue, sloshing around inside its mouth. I stuck my blade into its mouth until the tip poked out of the back of its head.

The milky white eyes stared at me. No way had they seen me. Not anymore. I’d stabbed the fucking life out of it for good, for real, this time.

Saylor managed to kill the one he’d been struggling against, the one that had distracted him while the other ate his ear.

“It bit me, man. It bit me,” he said. He was on one knee, the injured leg extended.

“You’ll be all right,” I said. No idea why. We both knew he was fucked.

He didn’t even humor me; wasn’t interested in being passive. He was military. He took action. What I never expected was the action taken.

He started to growl.

I thought, ah fuck, he’s changing into one of them already? Was it that fast? How fucked was I being this close to him. I need to get up, get away, and keep moving.

I had been wrong. He wasn’t changing. He was working up courage or strength, or both. All at once, he grabbed the top of his bitten ear with one hand and then with the knife in his other, severed the ear off. It wasn’t a clean cut. It bled profusely. Blood just seemed to leak from the side of his head.

Saylor held his ear in front of his face. His jaw set, mouth open. Muscles bulged on his neck. His arms shot to his side. He looked up into the fiery night sky.

“I’m not going to turn into one of those things, McKinney. I fucking ain’t, I just fucking ain’t.”