They marched forward.
“Swarming,” I heard Frosty tell Cole between shots. “Everywhere. All directions.”
Frosty faced front; Cole faced backward. Bronx extended both arms to cover left and right. Boom, boom, boom. Bullets flying in every direction.
Cole dropped his empty clip, then quickly and easily inserted another one that was ready and waiting on his belt. All three boys aimed for necks, doing their best to sever spinal cords.
They hit so many, piles of bodies began to form. And yet, they never made a dent in the numbers. As one zombie fell, two more would take his place. They just kept coming. When Cole ran out of arrows and his second round of bullets, he swiped up his swords and hacked his way through the masses. Heads separated from bodies, and those bodies collapsed—but just as before, neither head nor body died.
He moved with fluid grace, arching back when someone reached for him, then circling around to swipe everyone in front of him while kicking whoever happened to be behind him.
Footsteps. “Incoming,” I heard someone yell. Frosty and Bronx stopped firing. Trina and Cruz shoved through a wall of zombies and into the light, their hands glowing. They attacked the piles, ashing one enemy after another.
Another “Incoming!” sounded. Mackenzie, Derek and Haun were next to arrive, then Lucas and Collins. In their spirit form, their anklets hardly mattered, I realized. There was no sign of Brent.
Some of the boys were bloody. All were sweating, red-faced from strain and exertion. And here I was, up in the trees, doing nothing, letting them put their lives at risk.
Screw staying up here.
See? I’d known temptation would get the best of me.
Zombies followed each of the slayers, and soon we were utterly surrounded. All the kids continued to fire and fight and try to get their glowing palms on those decaying chests. Most of the creatures continually hissed as the heat from the lights flooded over them unceasingly, the blue tones in their skin darkening…darkening…becoming a thick black steam that rose from their pores. They no longer seemed to notice. Maybe because they felt no pain. Wasn’t that what Cole had said? And it seemed as though the zombies were actually working in organized groups, targeting specific kids, separating them before striking with more force.
A scream echoed. Mackenzie stumbled back as she yanked her arm from a zombie’s mouth. Rather than teeth marks, I saw black ooze bubbling from under her skin and I knew evil had been poured straight into her veins.
She kept fighting, her motions slowing…slowing…to nothing more than a slug’s pace. Another zombie managed to bite into that same injured arm, the black ooze spreading up, up, up. Her next scream crackled until it broke into a thousand pieces of silence. A new group of zombies leaped at her, disappearing inside her, rising, and dragging her down. None of the other kids realized her distress; they were too busy defending themselves.
I drew in a deep breath…held it, held it a little longer…I can do this. I will do this…then exhaled with force, propelling my spirit out of my body at the same time, just as I’d practiced. Here and now, with a surge of adrenaline, the action was easier.
I dropped to the ground, landed in a crouch, straightened, both blades clutched in my hands. A glow here, a glow there. The kids, the Blood Lines. Things to avoid. Immediately I pushed into motion, driving toward the group surrounding Mackenzie.
I slashed a zombie across the back of the neck. He stumbled to the side. Spinning, I stabbed another in the stomach. Another spin, another stabbing. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mackenzie’s body spotted with black and twitching, no longer glowing, her fingers gnarling from the intensity of the pain. At least the zombies surrounding her had forgotten all about the already bagged and tagged meal they could have and focused on me.
One snuck up beside me, crouched on the ground as he was, and managed to wrap his fingers around my wrist and tug me down. I stabbed him in the eyes, jab, jab, blinding him. Next I practically did a handstand to kick the zombie I’d heard coming up behind me. My overworked thigh muscles strained but he was shoved away.
“Zombies will not win tonight,” I said as a multitude of others gathered around me. It was a proclamation I prayed I believed.
I popped to my feet as they lunged at me, managing to slick my blade through one jugular, then another. I felt something solid press into my back, but didn’t panic. I caught a familiar sandalwood scent. Cole.
“You’re doing great.” He fought behind me, shielding my blind spots.
A warm gust of wind swirled around me, sparking with power and giving me a burst of strength. He’d believed what he’d said, and I’d believed what he’d said. I was doing great, but now I would do even better.
“You, too.” I arced my arms in different directions, cutting high with one and low with the other.