Page 57

Okay.

This is just another scavenger run.

In a city full of ravenous monsters.

No big deal.

Jacob steps in front of the group, and we all circle up. Joanie to my left, Clair to my right. She catches me looking and gives me a small smile as a blush creeps into her cheeks.

Did my heart just explode?

Jacob scans each of us. “All right, folks. This is it. Just like we talked about. No wandering. No noise unless you have to. Eyes up at all times. We get in, we get fuel, we get out.”

“Did you get that, Joanie?”

She leans back against the side of the Trailblazer like she’s bored out of her mind. “Find fuel. Avoid the biters. Stay quiet.” She lifts one finger. “Flip people the bird if they try to stop us. Do I got that shit right?”

I smack the back of her head as everyone says, “Language.”

She yelps and grabs her skull. “Ow! What the hell, big guy? I thought you were on my side!”

I huff out a quiet breath.

Lyla nods. “Let’s hit it.”

The city swallows us fast.

The farther in we go, the heavier the air gets. Buildings loom on both sides, windows blown out or boarded, brick faces stained black from old fires. Streets choke with abandoned cars, some crashed nose-first into poles, some parked crooked with doors hanging open like people got out and ran. A baby stroller lies overturned near a bus stop, one wheel spinning slowly in the wind.

I lock my grip around my bow.

Jacob takes point with Lyla because those two have the same death-wish confidence and different ways of pretending they don’t. Trish stays in the middle with Joanie. Clair stays near me.

We search the first stretch fast. A corner gas station gives us three cans, all dry. Someone has already siphoned the pumps or the tanks ran empty months ago. The service garage behind it has oil, a cracked funnel, and a dead mechanic chained to a lift.

The mechanic lunges when we step inside, the chain around its waist snapping tight as it throws itself toward us. Its coveralls are stiff with old blood, and one side of its face has peeled down to the jaw. The sound it makes is small at first, a trapped, wet rattle, then it sees us and starts shrieking through broken teeth.

I put an arrow through its skull before the sound can carry farther. Its head snaps back and hits the lift post, and dark fluid bursts down the metal in a slow, thick stripe.

Joanie wrinkles her nose. “Well, he won’t be giving us an oil change.”

Trish doesn’t look away from the door as she lifts a pair of cracked sunglasses off the shelf, slowly putting them on, saying, “You could say this mechanic finally ran out of mileage.”

Clair tamps down a laugh as groans answer from the street.

We freeze inside the garage while shapes shuffle through the open bay doors.

Three. Five. Maybe more.

They move wrong in the cold. Not the loose, hungry stumble I’m used to, but something sharper. Jerkier. Their joints catch and release like rusted hinges, knees locking before buckling forward, shoulders twitching beneath stiff coats crusted with old blood. Frost clings to their hair and lashes. Their skin has gone pale beneath the grime, waxy and blue in places, like all the warmth drained out and left something fake behind.

One bumps into a hanging air hose and gets tangled, jaw snapping at nothing while the hose loops around its throat. The movement makes its neck jerk at an unnatural angle, vertebrae clicking loud enough to crawl up my spine.

Lyla slips behind the closest infected, grabs it by the hair, and drives her knife up under the skull. It drops without a sound, body hitting the floor stiff and heavy. Jacob takes the next, catching its jacket and steering it into the edge of the lift before stabbing through the temple. The blade punches in with a dull crack, and frozen blood flakes from its cheek as it goes down.

Joanie slams a tire iron into the knees of the one tangled in the hose. The joints fold with a brittle pop, and it drops, arms spasming like the body hasn’t gotten the message yet. Trish finishes it with a blade to the eye.

Clair waits for the infected nearest her to stumble closer. Its mouth opens wide, tongue black and swollen, lips split from cold and rot. Dark blood has frozen in ropes down its chin and neck. Its eyes are rimmed red, the skin around them irritated and raw against the waxy blue of its face.