loose.
Chapter Five
I’m still not sure how we all didn’t kill each other that night; bullets were flying so fast and furious during that battle. The reavers rolled into us, firing seemingly at random. But there was a method to their madness. Reavers operate by strict rules. I didn’t know what the punishments entailed, but they must’ve been extreme, because even the old gnarly ones wouldn’t break them. The main no-no revolved around killing. Reavers were only allowed to eliminate people who’d been Marked for murder. In other words, me.
Everybody else had to survive. So while the reavers had to take me out, they only wanted to take everybody else down.
What they didn’t count on was the supreme skill and professionalism of their foes. Though they outnumbered us at least three to one at the start of the attack, within sixty seconds we’d whittled their numbers to fifteen.
Our guys had taken a couple more hits. One second Otto had been crouched near to me, a half grin on his face, saying, “If I had a wheelbarrow full of dynamite I’d blow these fuckers to Mars.” The next second he lay writhing on the ground, trying not to scream, his hip shattered. As I stood over him, nailing reavers when I had a clear shot, pulling up when I realized I’d just aimed at one of my own, I saw Ricardo drop beneath a mass of monsters. Grace had made little progress toward the truck, and was bleeding heavily from a facial wound. Still, I thought we had them.
Then two more groups appeared, coming from both our flanks. These didn’t have firearms, but we already knew the power of their claws, and several swung swords. Terrence and Ashley fired into them, but they didn’t have the right angle to get more than one or two head shots per burst.
“Form on me!” yelled David.
Our guys from the farmhouse joined us and we tried to keep moving, but they swarmed us. Terrence went down under a reaver’s claws. Vayl, seeing him fall, took the reaver’s eye with his sword and pulled the wounded man to his feet. I holstered Grief and grabbed his machine gun. Switching it to three-round burst mode, I fired into the crowd of reavers coming at me, their tongues lolling in anticipation of tasting my soul.
“Jasmine!” called Vayl. “Do not stop!”
Easier said than done. I inched forward, almost tripped over a body, ducked quickly to avoid a neck-ripping swipe, and nearly screamed as the corpse between my legs lurched to its feet. I managed to mute the scream into a squawk as I jumped back, banging into Cole in my rush to avoid the rising reaver.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried. “I missed!”
“Watch out! Watch out!” I yelled. “The dead are rising!”
All around us the reavers we’d defeated the first time around had rediscovered vertical. Multiple thoughts streaked through my mind simultaneously. Not all of them made sense, but a skilled translator might put them in the following light: Oh Jesus! Oh crap! Zombies! The Wizard’s a necromancer. He could be around here somewhere, pulling their strings. So should I just run off into the night like some rabid raccoon and hope I luck into him? How stupid is that? Plus, it’s not him. It’s probably an apprentice. You know that. It may even be the mole. Is anybody murmuring a spell? How the hell can I tell? We are so outnumbered! Did Ashley just go down? My God, I think the semi is farther away than ever. Is that possible? Oh Jesus, was that Terrence’s leg? Don’t turn your head. I said don’t — never mind. Holy shit, that’s the barrel of a Colt .45 aimed right at my face!
The reaver, a live one, grinned wide enough to show the gap between his front teeth as his finger squeezed the trigger.
“Vayl,” I whispered, my eyes somehow tracking straight to his in my final moment.
“Jasmine!” He lunged toward me, too late. The gun boomed and I went down almost at the same time. Except the horrifying pain I expected never split into my brain. A zombie had tackled me,
Chapter Five
I’m still not sure how we all didn’t kill each other that night; bullets were flying so fast and furious during that battle. The reavers rolled into us, firing seemingly at random. But there was a method to their madness. Reavers operate by strict rules. I didn’t know what the punishments entailed, but they must’ve been extreme, because even the old gnarly ones wouldn’t break them. The main no-no revolved around killing. Reavers were only allowed to eliminate people who’d been Marked for murder. In other words, me.
Everybody else had to survive. So while the reavers had to take me out, they only wanted to take everybody else down.
What they didn’t count on was the supreme skill and professionalism of their foes. Though they outnumbered us at least three to one at the start of the attack, within sixty seconds we’d whittled their numbers to fifteen.
Our guys had taken a couple more hits. One second Otto had been crouched near to me, a half grin on his face, saying, “If I had a wheelbarrow full of dynamite I’d blow these fuckers to Mars.” The next second he lay writhing on the ground, trying not to scream, his hip shattered. As I stood over him, nailing reavers when I had a clear shot, pulling up when I realized I’d just aimed at one of my own, I saw Ricardo drop beneath a mass of monsters. Grace had made little progress toward the truck, and was bleeding heavily from a facial wound. Still, I thought we had them.
Then two more groups appeared, coming from both our flanks. These didn’t have firearms, but we already knew the power of their claws, and several swung swords. Terrence and Ashley fired into them, but they didn’t have the right angle to get more than one or two head shots per burst.
“Form on me!” yelled David.
Our guys from the farmhouse joined us and we tried to keep moving, but they swarmed us. Terrence went down under a reaver’s claws. Vayl, seeing him fall, took the reaver’s eye with his sword and pulled the wounded man to his feet. I holstered Grief and grabbed his machine gun. Switching it to three-round burst mode, I fired into the crowd of reavers coming at me, their tongues lolling in anticipation of tasting my soul.
“Jasmine!” called Vayl. “Do not stop!”
Easier said than done. I inched forward, almost tripped over a body, ducked quickly to avoid a neck-ripping swipe, and nearly screamed as the corpse between my legs lurched to its feet. I managed to mute the scream into a squawk as I jumped back, banging into Cole in my rush to avoid the rising reaver.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried. “I missed!”
“Watch out! Watch out!” I yelled. “The dead are rising!”
All around us the reavers we’d defeated the first time around had rediscovered vertical. Multiple thoughts streaked through my mind simultaneously. Not all of them made sense, but a skilled translator might put them in the following light: Oh Jesus! Oh crap! Zombies! The Wizard’s a necromancer. He could be around here somewhere, pulling their strings. So should I just run off into the night like some rabid raccoon and hope I luck into him? How stupid is that? Plus, it’s not him. It’s probably an apprentice. You know that. It may even be the mole. Is anybody murmuring a spell? How the hell can I tell? We are so outnumbered! Did Ashley just go down? My God, I think the semi is farther away than ever. Is that possible? Oh Jesus, was that Terrence’s leg? Don’t turn your head. I said don’t — never mind. Holy shit, that’s the barrel of a Colt .45 aimed right at my face!
The reaver, a live one, grinned wide enough to show the gap between his front teeth as his finger squeezed the trigger.
“Vayl,” I whispered, my eyes somehow tracking straight to his in my final moment.
“Jasmine!” He lunged toward me, too late. The gun boomed and I went down almost at the same time. Except the horrifying pain I expected never split into my brain. A zombie had tackled me,
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