“Nix!” he yelled.
Nix jumped over a fallen tree, stopped, snatched up a thick branch, and as one of the men leaped over the tree after her, she swung so hard that Benny could hear the crack all the way across the field. But then three more men ran after her, and she fled and then was out of sight behind a cluster of trees. A fifth man stepped to the top of a small ridge and aimed something at Benny that glinted with blue fire in the sunlight. Without realizing that he was going to do it, Benny ducked down, and he felt the bullet sear the air just above the back of his neck. The sharp bang of the shot chased the bullet through the empty air. There was another shot, and another. Something plucked at his pack, and he waited, listening inside his body for the pain, but there was nothing. Fifty feet away a zom spun and fell, a black hole punched through its stomach, but even as the horse raced past, the zombie was struggling back to its feet.
The water was there, the crowd of dead school children spread out before him.
Which would kill him, he wondered. The zombies or the bullets of the bounty hunters?
“BENNY!” Nix’s voice carried as clear as a bell over the hills. He turned to see her running toward him with five men only yards behind her. “RUN!”
He was running. Thirty yards now. Twenty.
He heard Nix scream once more, and when he turned again, he saw that the largest of the men had grabbed her, snatching her up as if she were a toddler. The five men immediately turned and ran back toward the trees as a wave of zoms shambled after them.
“NO!” Benny yelled, reaching one hand impotently toward the retreating figures.
And then something flashed past him and slammed into the wall of zoms. Benny saw silver fire dancing in the sunlight, and the zoms fell away, coming apart in desiccated sections, arms and heads flying away from the screaming thing that plowed through them.
“Benny!” Tom bellowed. “Follow me!”
It was impossible, but there he was. Covered in blood and dust, his sword glittering like flowing mercury, Chief’s eyes rolling with insane fear as Tom smashed aside the living dead and splashed into the blue water.
Benny’s horse leaped over the last of the dead, his hooves caving in the head of the bus driver, and then they were in the water. The cold current struck them, and Apache neighed and blew, and Benny gasped as icy water bit his ribs and chest. Forty or more of the zoms followed them into the water, but the powerful current plucked them up and swept them away.
Benny turned and looked toward the treeline. There was no sign of Nix, but for a moment—perhaps it was his imagination or the shimmer of the heat or even a wandering zom—but Benny thought he saw another small figure moving across the field toward the treeline, heading in the same direction that the men had taken Nix. She ran fast, bent low, and she carried something in her hands that glinted like steel. Benny blinked sweat out of his eyes, and when he looked again, the small running figure was gone.
The treeline was an unbroken line of oaks and maples, with no sign of human life. The field was covered with the living dead—thousands upon thousands of them—and that way was as blocked and useless as the collapsed pass through the cliff. Their horses clambered up onto the far bank.
They were safe.
But Nix was gone.
And they could not follow.
36
BITTER, EXHAUSTED, AND ANGRY, THEY MOVED AWAY FROM THE CREEK as fast as their horses could go, heading into the hills, seeking the safety of the high ground. When they were safe in a thick copse of trees, and when Tom was convinced that there were no zoms nearby, they slid from the saddles and collapsed onto the thick grass. For several long minutes they lay there, unable to move, gasping like beached fish, running with sweat, barely able to think. Apache and Chief stood nearby, their legs trembling with tension and fear.
“Are you okay?” Tom asked when he had the breath.