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  More screaming emanated from inside the car. A quick glance told the story. The door on Jason’s side was stuck, the metal crumpled from the crash, and they were all struggling to get out through the passenger side door. Brix moved a few extra steps away to make room.

  It took several more seconds—precious time they could ill afford to lose—but the rest of them eventually managed to exit the crashed car to stand in slack-jawed terror behind Brix. They were moments away from total defeat. From agonizing death. She felt this down to her bones. But, while the others allowed their terror to paralyze them, Brix realized it was down to her to act and be the leader.

  A quick scan of the surroundings revealed they had crashed at the edge of a four-way intersection. More cars and corpses everywhere. She saw buildings. Convenience stores. A doughnut shop. Fast-food restaurants. A full-service auto-repair garage looked like the most secure building, but it was too close and there were too many zombies in the way. Brix’s head snapped rapidly this way and that, desperately seeking the way out. Then she locked onto a distant row of houses, a residential area a hundred yards or so beyond the nearest convenience store.

  A quick glance over her shoulder. “Follow me!”

  She shot the nearest zombie through an empty eye socket and took off running, hoping like hell the others had enough of their wits about them to follow immediately.

  More zombies peeled off from the crowd and gave chase. Those were the fresher ones. They were faster than the ones who had been rotting a while. Two more headshots took out two of the fleetest. She had lost track of how many rounds had been fired from the Glock’s single clip. Too much confusion. But, for sure, the rounds wasted by Nikki during the struggle in the car didn’t help matters.

  She needed to outrun these fuckers, not waste her remaining ammunition. No problem. She was young. She was fit. She could fucking fly when she felt like it. Her legs and arms pumped hard and her booted feet pounded the pavement as she blew by the convenience store and kept going.

  A one-legged zombie was lying in the street up ahead. It moaned and reached out to her with a badly rotted hand missing some of its fingers. Brix stutter-stepped around him and returned to full speed in the space of maybe a second. She heard other running feet on the pavement behind her. Whether they were Trevor and the others, or more zombies giving chase, she did not know.

  As she zoomed into the residential area, she noted significantly fewer cars lining the curbs. She took this as an indicator that most who lived here had chosen to flee the city. But to where? Refugee centers? Out to the countryside where there was more open space and less chance of being cornered by the living dead? She hadn’t been here when the shit had gone down, so she couldn’t know. But it would be a good thing for them—at least right this moment—if most of the survivors had scattered far and wide. It meant most of these homes would be empty. And empty houses meant a lower likelihood of deadly struggles with homeowners reluctant to allow entry to a group of desperate strangers.

  She didn’t slow down as she ran past the first block of houses. Nor the second. She heard voices yelling at her. Shrill and beseeching. Hard to make out most of what they were saying, but she got the gist of it. The others wanted to try one of the first group of houses, but Brix knew that was a mistake. What they needed was some distance between themselves and that pack of living dead. She jogged left when she reached the next crossroad and for the first time risked a backward glance.

  They were all still back there, struggling to hang close to her. Even Nikki, unfortunately. If anyone was in dire need of being ripped to pieces and devoured by flesh-hungry zombies, it was her. Alas, fate was on the idiot’s side. Most of the zombies appeared to have abandoned the chase. Even the fastest of them couldn’t keep pace with a healthy, living human running flat out.

  Brix spotted a house with its front door standing slightly ajar. She slowed as she neared the house and ran across its patchy front lawn, stopping just short of the small porch.

  “Hello?” she called out, after taking a moment to catch her breath. “Is anyone in there?”

  This was a tricky situation. Entering a house through an open door was obviously easier than trying to break into one that was locked down tight. The problem was that the house might not be empty. There could be other survivors inside. Armed people with twitchy nerves. Or there might be more zombies lurking somewhere in there. But Brix was desperate for a place where they could hole up for a while and regroup.

  “Hello?” she called out again, taking another cautious step closer to the porch. “If anyone’s in there, we’re not dangerous. We just need some kind of shelter for a while.”

  She heard the others come jogging up behind her. They were huffing and puffing as they moved into position to either side of her, staring with curious expressions at the open door.

  Jason glanced at her, brow furrowing. “So what do you think? We go in?”

  Brix stared at the beckoning door a beat longer. There had been no answer, nor had there been any kind of audible noise from inside. No creak of floorboards under lightly treading feet. Nothing discernibly furtive at all.

  She approached the porch, raising the Glock as she cast a quick glance over her shoulder. “Hang back while I peek inside.”

  The house was old and the porch was wood over a cement foundation. It creaked loudly as she climbed the stairs and advanced toward the door. Holding her breath, she leaned close to the opening and peeked inside. The interior was a shambles, from what she could see. There was debris everywhere. A sofa cushion had been shredded. She saw empty bottles and cans. Fast-food wrappers. A bookcase had been knocked onto its side. A haphazard pile of old paperbacks stood near it.

  She let out her breath and called out one more time. Still no answer. So she nudged the door with the toe of her boot and pushed it slowly open. The wider view revealed more evidence of sloth and disarray. Whoever had occupied the place most recently had lived like a pig. The little house didn’t have a second floor. Probably only had a few rooms total. From here she could see virtually the entire living room, a small dining area beyond it, as well as a glimpse of what had to be the kitchen through an archway. She still couldn’t be entirely certain the place was empty, but things were looking good.

  She studied the mess a moment longer.

  Relatively speaking.

  She stepped into the house and backed away from the open door. She then raised the Glock and moved in a wide semicircular arc until she could see there was no one lurking behind the door. That done, she moved farther into the house, still keeping the gun in front of her. She heard a creaking behind her and glanced back to see the others entering the house.

  “Trevor, shut that door. Lock it if you can.”

  He nodded and did as asked.

  A careful but short search of the rest of the house revealed a kitchen as filthy and debris-strewn as the living room and a short hallway leading to two small, dingy bedrooms. The place was a dump for sure, but it was empty.

  Brix rejoined the others in the living room.

  Trevor looked at her. “Door’s locked. Regular lock and deadbolt.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  Nikki leveled a murderous glance her way before she took off running, disappearing down the short hallway. A moment later they heard a door slam.

  Brix almost laughed.

  Well, there’s one way of avoiding the reckoning you’ve got coming, bitch.

  But it would come, one way or another. Oh yes.

  Trevor tilted his chin at Jason. “Maybe you should check on her.”

  Jason laughed heartily. “Right. After the shit she pulled? Girl almost got us all killed. Fuck it. She’s on her own.” He squinted at something on the wall behind Brix. “The fuck is that?”

  Brix turned and saw a single word spray-painted in large, squiggly red letters on the expanse of dingy drywall:

  PARTHENOGENESIS

  Brix puzzled over the word for a few moments, thinking she had heard it
somewhere before, but then she shrugged and shook her head.

  “No idea what that means.”

  Trevor frowned. “Wow. Kind of fucking random. A big fifty-cent word like that spray-painted on the wall of a shithole like this.”

  Brix shrugged again.

  The little mystery wasn’t worth their time. They had bigger concerns at the moment. She turned away from the wall and stared at the windows at the front of the house. Any curtains that might once have hung from the rods above them were long gone. For now, the bright moonlight shining through them was the only source of illumination available. But if they were still here by sunrise…

  “We’ll need to cover those windows in the morning.”

  Jason grunted. “I’ll check the bedrooms for sheets and blankets.”

  After he was gone, Trevor smiled and approached Brix, drawing her into an embrace. “You did good.”

  Brix grunted. “I guess.”

  “No guessing about it. You took action while the rest of us were standing there with our thumbs up our asses. You saved our goddamn lives tonight, Brix.”

  This earned him a reluctant smile. “Yeah. I guess I sort of did.”

  This time he kissed her and it lingered—maybe a little longer than appropriate under the circumstances. But she didn’t fight it. It felt nice. And it was good to feel something nice after so much horror.

  But darkness encroached on her thoughts again and again anyway.

  Because the horror was far from over.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lashon sprinted between the vehicles parked outside the house and came to a gasping stop in front of the porch. She looked up at the young people gathered there and saw a range of expressions that conveyed varying levels of surprise, fear, and cautious amusement. She thought about how bedraggled she must appear to them after her flight through the woods, what with her formerly nice clothes now torn and plastered to her skin by sweat and rain, her hair in disarray, and the scratches on her skin caused by her multiple falls in the dark. No wonder some of them, the girls especially, looked wary. But there was nothing for it. These people were her only hope.

  “Please. You have to help me.”

  One of the guys approached the edge of the porch. He was about her age and kind of cute, with wavy brown hair and an earnest-looking face. He squinted at her, eyeing her up and down, but in an appraising way rather than a leering one. “What happened to you?”

  He had a deep voice and she thought she heard real concern in it. She hoped her perceptions were on the money. With her luck so far tonight, she wouldn’t be surprised if these people scoffed and told her to fuck off somewhere else. “Someone was chasing me. A…man. He was trying to kill me.”

  “What?” She heard a bark of feminine laughter. A curvy blonde girl in denim cutoffs and a bikini top was the culprit. Lashon glanced at her. Perfect hair. Perfect nails. Perfect skin. Perfect everything. Except that the skeptical, sneering expression twisting her face made it obvious she was kind of a bitch. “Are you fucking kidding with that shit?”

  “No. I’m dead serious.”

  The girl laughed again. “Get outta here. You’re fucking with us.”

  The guy who had initially addressed Lashon glanced at the blonde. “Pretty sure she’s not fucking with us, Mercedes. Look at her. Something serious happened. We should help if we can.”

  Lashon liked what she was hearing from this dude, but for just a second it was hard to focus on that because…Mercedes?

  Are you fucking kidding me?

  It was all she could do not to roll her eyes.

  Mercedes executed a perfectly withering eye-roll of her own. Lashon was certain the girl had spent a significant portion of her bitch life practicing the bratty expression. “What-the-fuck-ever, Grant. Waste your time with her lying ass, I don’t care.”

  Another of the girls, a brunette in tan shorts and a white halter top, peeled away from the other girls to stand next to Grant. She was lovely, with perfect, unblemished white skin, startling-blue eyes, and the face of a goddess. Jesus. All these people looked like they were straight out of Central Casting. Of course they did. If they were characters from Chainsaw Maniac somehow made flesh, they sort of were. But this girl was more like Grant. Lashon saw what looked like very genuine empathy in her expression.

  The brunette tilted her chin at Lashon. “What’s your name?”

  “Lashon.”

  “Unusual name.”

  For a white girl, she finished in her head.

  That was the unspoken part. Many thought it, few said it.

  “I know.”

  I’ve only had it my whole damn life.

  The brunette smiled. “I like it. I’m Ashley.”

  Lashon forced a strained smile. “Nice to meet you, Ashley.”

  Now please stop blathering and help me out.

  “Likewise.” Ashley glanced at Mercedes, who’d apparently opted to ignore Lashon’s existence and was now engaged in conversation with another girl about nail polish. She looked at Lashon again and lowered her voice. “Pay no attention to her. I don’t.”

  Lashon’s smile became marginally more genuine. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Grant coughed. “Back to the whole guy-trying-to-kill-you thing…maybe you should start from the beginning. Tell us what you were doing in the woods and what happened.”

  Lashon turned away from them for a moment to scan the line of trees at the edge of the clearing. Talking to these people, it was easy to be lulled into the fantasy that none of it had actually happened. But it had. And she had to convince them she was telling the truth. That was the tricky part. She couldn’t tell them everything. Then they would all think she was messing with them and would probably send her on her way. She looked at Grant and Ashley again, took a deep breath, and told them a version of the truth.

  “I was out with some friends earlier tonight. We went to a movie. But I got separated from them and…something happened. That part’s kind of fuzzy…I was drunk…but I think I was abducted. I woke up out there…” She indicated the woods behind her with a hand gesture. “There was a man in a mask. He had…he had…” Lashon’s heart started beating faster as she recounted this part of her ordeal. It was all still so fresh. The terror she’d experienced still so close. But she swallowed and made herself continue. “He had a fucking chainsaw. He came after me with it. I got up and ran. I ran and I fucking ran. I don’t know how, but I lost him out there. But I think he might have caught up. I think I heard him stalking after me right before I came running up here.”

  One of the other guys, a jock type with muscles and rakish blond hair, moved away from the grill to stand next to Grant. He took a swig from a nearly empty bottle of Newcastle and peered out at the edge of the woods. “What do you think, man? Should we check it out?”

  Lashon gasped. “No. That’s a bad idea.”

  And naturally Mercedes dialed back into the conversation at that pronouncement. “Of course it is. You’re afraid your goddamn lie will be exposed.”

  The jock glared at her. “Shut up. You’re just being a bitch, like always. This chick’s been through some real shit. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

  Mercedes’ expression turned hard. Almost murderous. “Fuck you, Rick.” Her gaze shifted from him to another guy by the grill, who was good-looking but more slightly built than either Rick or Grant. “You gonna let that asshole talk to me like that, Blaine?”

  Blaine looked nervous. “Um…”

  Mercedes did the withering eye-roll thing again. “Of course you are. Pussy.”

  Lashon sighed. “Enough fucking drama. Didn’t you people hear me? The psycho motherfucker has a chainsaw. We need to get inside, right now, and call the goddamn cops.”

  Blaine laughed. “Good luck with that. We’re way out in the sticks. There’s no landline and cell service is spotty. You won’t be able to reach anyone.”

  Lashon groaned. “Right. Of course. Why would it be any other way?”

  Mercedes ma
de a face again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  It means, you dumb cunt, that I’m in a slasher movie come to life and of course there’s no phone service out here because that would be inconvenient to the needs of the fucking script.

  But she couldn’t say that, of course.

  “Nothing. It’s just my luck, I mean. Which, tonight, is all fucking bad.”

  Mercedes made a show of looking her over again, her face continuing to convey nothing but disdain. “Story of your life, I bet.”

  Lashon had an array of equally catty things she could say in response, but she was done sniping with the girl for now. She had bigger things to worry about. They all did, even if they didn’t quite believe it yet.

  Rick put the Newcastle bottle to his lips and knocked back the last swallow before dropping the empty in a large metal trash can by the porch rail.

  He tilted his chin at Grant. “I’m checking shit out. With me?”

  Grant nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Lashon’s eyes widened as they came down the porch steps and stepped purposefully past her. “Wait, wait, no, you can’t do this. Please listen to me.”

  Still more snide laughter from Mercedes. She ignored it and turned to follow the guys as they marched across the clearing. Rick glanced back at her and winked. “I’m not worried. Show ya why.”

  He headed toward the big red Jeep as he dug into a pocket of his shorts. He pulled out an electronic key fob attached to a ring of keys. The Jeep’s headlights flashed once when Rick pushed a button on it. He opened the door on the passenger side and leaned inside. Lashon moved around him and lifted her chin for a better look at what he was doing. She saw him open the glove box and remove a very large handgun.

  Rick threw the door shut and showed her the weapon. “Desert Eagle, .45 caliber. If your chainsaw guy is out there, he should be scared of us.”

  Lashon frowned. “This is still a bad idea. Please don’t go out there.”