Grim Tidings by Caitlin Kittredge Page B

reached down with my free hand and squeezed his. “I’m not going to die here, and I’ll try my best to make sure you don’t either.”
    Jacob stared at the bloody hand prints on the window, but his fingers squeezed mine in return. “They’re strong,” he said. “Fast. Anything they haven’t bitten, they’ll chase down like a pack of wolves.” He met my eyes. “Do you know what they are?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” I said. Better than admitting I had no fucking idea what was happening. Hellspawn didn’t do this—Gary would have a conniption if he got a spot on his tie, never mind bathe in blood. Demons didn’t have the need to cause mass chaos when they had the Hellspawn to do it for them. Vampires turned victims with venom, more like a venereal disease than whatever this was. Thatleft deadheads, corpses raised by a necromancer, but Kubler was dead. All of his walking corpses should have dropped with him.
    We stepped outside, and I almost fell over Kubler’s body. What was left of it, anyway. The crowded yard behind the barbed wire was swarming with the same languorous, bloody monsters I’d seen inside. Jacob flinched as a few turned their eyes on us. The eyes were pure black—or so clouded with blood from ruptured vessels they looked black. I crouched slowly, not breaking off eye contact.
    â€œGet as much blood as you can,” I said, gesturing at the pile of ground meat and entrails that used to be Kubler. “Cover yourself.”
    Jacob did as I said, retching as we both smeared the sticky, cooling blood over our faces and hands, down our fronts. While I was at it I ripped off the red armband. It fluttered into a pile of bloody snow and got trampled underfoot.
    Beyond the fence surrounding the hospital, I could see more shadows in the gray half-light. Some were shuffling as if they still had control over their limbs; some were lying on the ground, quivering as the people still upright walked past without even looking at them.
    â€œWhere will we go?” Jacob whispered. “The guards . . .”
    Sirens began to wail from outside the fence and a Klieg light snapped on, sweeping the yard and lighting it up brighter than the sun. Snowflakes twirled in the cone of light, turning red where they touched the bloody ground.
    â€œThe guards have bigger problems than us,” I said. Like the universe wanted to back me up, a burst of automatic gunfire clattered through the freezing air from far off in the camp.
    Sticking to the rough hospital walls, Jacob and I eased past the mob of creatures. I didn’t want to think about what could be goingon here. Deadheads were fast and hungry like these, but if they bit you all you were going to do was bleed, not turn into a pissy cannibal yourself. No vamp I’d ever met could rip a person limb from limb, even on their best day. I was still left with a big fucking I DON’T KNOW blinking over these things’ heads, and I didn’t like it.
    By the time we’d made it to the fence, we were both almost weak from the tension of moving slowly, freezing every time one of the things turned our way and sniffed the air. Jacob grimaced at the sight of the wire. “You can fit. I am not so small.”
    I shrugged out of the thick linen shirt I’d stolen. It was ruined anyway, so I wrapped it around my fists, trying not to wince as the barbs bit through the layers into my palm. I used my foot to push down the bottom strand and jerked my chin at Jacob. “Go.”
    Jacob bent down, trying to fold himself in half and sliding under the top wire. He looked back at me. “What about you?”
    â€œI’m right behind you,” I said. It wasn’t a lie until I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder hard enough to pull my collarbone back. “Jacob, run!” I screamed, as I landed in the freezing mud.
    He ran. To his eternal credit, he ran and didn’t look