Sally.
The snow leopard seemed to dance in the still-careening bus. He pounced away from the hole in the floor, jumping to the iron rod atop the nearest seat, balancing all four huge paws atop the metal that couldn’t have been more than an inch in diameter. A split second later he jumped to another bench back, then landed on the zombie’s arm and slashed it with one paw while his tremendous fangs bit down on the back of the zombie’s neck.
The zombie jerked. And went limp. All communications between what passed for a mind and the rest of its body instantly severed by the snow leopard’s crushing jaws.
The zombie slumped, falling half over Maggie. She gagged and said, “No, no, no-ung, nung, ung,” disgust turning her voice into a groan of horror.
Sally jumped back to the hole where he had been since it opened up below him.
And the zombie that the big cat had destroyed shuddered.
It grabbed Maggie.
Its mouth opened again.
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Maggie’s moan-shouts of disgust turned instantly to the more direct and sharper scream of pain and terror as the thing grabbed a double-handful of her hair. Sally growled and hunched, his back curving into a deadly arc as he prepared to leap back to the thing that had been destroyed once and did not have the sense to remain silent in defeat.
The cat didn’t jump, though.
Something reached up from under the bus. Reached up through the hole in the floor, and a hooked nail slashed at Sally’s paw.
The big cat’s growl turned to a yelp of surprise and pain. The baby-thing’s hand disappeared, but it had done its job. It had done enough
It had given the zombie at the window time to bite Ken’s wife.
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The thing was fast. Faster than anything that had been through the end of the world should be, and certainly faster than anything that had just had its cervical spine severed by the bite of an angry predator could be.
The inconceivable stood on the shoulders of the impossible, and together they dropped toward Maggie.
Sally was too slow. Buck was dealing with his own pain.
Everyone was too far. Too far, but Ken was too close. Too close because he was going to see his wife die – or worse – the same way he had seen his son. Worse, because his son had disappeared in smoke and flame. His wife would not disappear.
Would not. But did.
She disappeared behind a silvery stretch of steel. Ken had an instant to see the zombie doubled, mirrored upon itself as its reflection gaped. Then it fell away, seeming almost to drip out the side of the bus.
Ken looked at Aaron in shock. The cowboy was frozen in position, one knee so low it almost touched the plate deck of the floor, his mangled left hand behind him, right hand extended directly in front of his chin with pointer finger extended.
It took a moment to realize what had happened. To play things back in reverse and understand that the cowboy hadn’t been able to reach Ken’s wife anymore than had Ken himself. But he had something that could move faster than either: the sword. Too far to swing it, and in these close quarters he would have been just as likely to take off the head of a friend as that of a foe.
But he could throw it. And did.
He had used it like a javelin, throwing it point-first at the zombie, the blade passing so close over Maggie’s head that Ken could see wisps of her dark blond hair floating to the seat beside her.
If anyone else had done it, it would have seemed like an impossibility. It would have been a marvel.
With Aaron, it was just something he did. Who he was.
The zombie started twitching as it fell out of the bus, the pink ooze that marked a major head wound with these things spurting around the bright edge of the broadsword. It was still a danger, but now it was an indiscriminate one: it would kill anything it could, instead of just targeting people. Instead of just targeting Ken’s family and friends.
The zombie slid away like a fish being yanked on a string, but not before Maggie grabbed the hilt of the broadsword. She yanked it free, and the thing’s head split in two, the top half falling to the right in a spray of pink ooze while the bottom half fell with the rest of the zombie and slid for an impossible moment against the side of the bus before disappearing behind them.
Maggie flipped the broadsword in her hand, catching it almost lightly by the blade and then tossing it back to Aaron.
He snatched it out of the air. Nodded his thanks as though he owed her a boon for the return of the weapon, rather than her owing him for the return of her life.
Sally growled at the edge of the hole. The snow leopard’s back arched again, fur standing on end to such an extent that its streamlined body seemed to expand to twice its size.
The chittering, skittering noise of something below them bounced through the hole and off the metal poles and rods and walls and ceiling of the bus.
This wasn’t over.
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