Page 6 of After the Burn

He gave me the sad puppy eyes, but when I walked off, he did as he was told, standing protectively at Lila’s side.

I was so thankful I’d rescued him from the shitty biker gang Beck used to be part of. Max had been invaluable in keeping watch over the children, especially after Ben helped me train him with German commands. He explained it mattered because it reduced confusion and kept strangers from issuing orders.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. I couldn’t think about my dad right now. Any distraction could be deadly, and that was a major one.

Taking a deep breath, I refocused my attention on what I was doing.

The closer I got to the sounds I’d heard, the quieter everything grew: no birds, no wind, just that faint shuffling and the dragging of feet among the trees.

I crept slowly through the brush until I saw them.

A group of five infected milled at the edge of the road, their movements jerky and off, as if their bodies weren’t quite working the way they should.

Five wasn’t a bad number.

Several months ago, it would’ve been, but things had changed.

I stayed low, letting the brush swallow me as I circled wide, keeping the wind in my favor. They drifted along the edge of the road, heads twitching, bodies lagging half a beat behind themselves.

I slipped the knife from its sheath, testing its weight in my hand, then shifted the bat along my back just enough to free it if I needed it. The wood felt smooth where I held it, and I’d made the head much heavier by driving nails through it.

I waited for a straggler; there was always one.

When it broke off a few steps from the others, I moved.

Fast.

Way faster than would’ve been possible months before.

One of my hands hooked the back of its collar, the other drove the blade up and in, straight through the eye. It went slack and folded into me like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I dropped it to the ground.

I made a face. “Fucking disgusting.” Gagging, I wiped the blade on its tattered shirt and edged forward again.

The second turned at the wrong moment, mouth opening on a wet, broken sound that never made it out. I was already there, closing the distance before it could finish the thought, the knife punching in just under the jaw and up. It shuddered, fingers scraping uselessly at my sleeve before going still.

Three left.

They were much closer together.

“Annoying,” I muttered under my breath.

I eased back into the trees, heart steady, breathing evenly, letting them drift until one lagged behind the other two.

There.

I stepped out just enough to let it see me, then slipped back as it followed, slow and stupid, feet dragging across the gravel. When it stepped into the brush, I met it head-on; the blade sliding home, quick and deep.

Two left.

The last pair shifted, heads snapping in my direction, as I came up behind them.

Too late.

I reached for Guts & Glory, affectionately shortened to GG.

Yes, I named my bat.

No, it wasn’t Lucille. Even if I had found it romantic when I binge-watched The Walking Dead for Negan to name his bat after his dead wife.