Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MIKO
The scent of cherries and cookies infiltrated my nostrils as soon as we stepped out of North Greenwich station. A heavy jungle of weeds burst from the concrete, a few slow biters noticing our presence.
Those fucking blood bastards would so be getting theirs soon.
Hard.
But another scent made itself known. Fuel.
I led Cate across the old entertainment hub outside the arena toward the river. Once packed with people, restaurants, clubs, the arena itself housing a shopping center, it was now nothing more than a weed-choked graveyard.
I jumped over bodies, various holes in the ground, never once encountering a speedie. A fox darted out from behind a pile of boxes, a badger made a spitting sound nearby. Other than that, the place remained quiet as we made a beeline for the North Greenwich pier.
Moonlight spilled across the wooden slats, showing off some badly rotted dead bodies sprawled across the pier.
“Stronger here,” Cate said as we took a pause. “I can really smell diesel.”
“Yeah. And too much blood.”
I moved to the partially sunken end of the pier, dark water splashing around it. A slowie with no bottom half reached up for me, its decayed insides trailing in the river like bits of string. I smashed its head with my boot.
“Do you think they used a boat?” she asked.
The scent trailed eastward, fainter in the western direction.
“Yeah. Probably took ours.”
Explained the diesel scent in both directions.
I was tempted to shift into a wolf. We were quick in humanoid form, quicker as wolves. However, our wolf forms depleted our energy fast. We left shifting for when we were out of options, and for the first midnight of the month to allow our beasts to run free.
I left shifting as a possible option for later.
“Keep to the water’s edge,” I said. “We’ll keep heading east.”
Please be okay…
“Yes. Sir?”
“What is it?”
“There’s someone in the water.”
“What?”
“More than one.”
She was right. There were three people front crawling through the river. Powerful swimmers. One turned his head, showing me pink eyes, adjusting his trajectory toward the pier.
“Eat!”
Pink eyes in all three heads. Hissing, repeating that word.
“What the fuck?”
“How is this possible?” Cate said.
Speedies in the water. Swimming as if they were alive.
Speaking. Which put Orion in greater danger if he was on a boat.
We took off along the water’s edge, leaving the zombies some yards out in the water.
“This is insane,” Cate said, keeping her volume low.
My heart thundered in my chest, my brain struggling to comprehend this new development.
Dawn did this. Somehow, that pink smoke had changed the game again.
It had to end.