Chapter 8 They’re Coming to Get You, Barbara!
EIGHT
THEY’RE COMING TO GET YOU, BARBARA!
JACOB
She tears through the courtyard like a demon unleashed, Hummer tires shrieking, gravel and dirt kicking up in a blinding storm.
Music blasts from the stereo—louder than the flames, louder than the undead’s guttural groans.
It’s a chaotic symphony of rebellion, her laughter slicing through the madness.
Flames leap higher, adding to the already blazing summer heat, consuming the buildings in the courtyard’s perimeter. Smoke billows, dark and choking, shrouding the scene in a haze of destruction. The horde surges after her, a writhing mass of rot and snapping jaws.
Their bodies are in various grotesque stages of decay—skin hanging in tatters, bones exposed, eyes clouded yet locked on their target with horrifying focus.
The stench hits like a punch to the gut, a rancid mix of decomp and death carried on the hot wind.
Groans rise into a chorus of hunger, clawed hands grasping just inches from her as the Hummer whips out of reach.
Beside me, Leon watches the scene with a bemused shake of his head. He signs, “Gutsy kid.”
“More like crazy,” I mutter, though the edge in my voice carries something closer to respect. Reckless, sure. But it’s working. The distraction is perfect. Still—why the hell is she here?
Men pour out of the building, shouting and firing. The girl jerks the wheel and swings the Hummer wide, cracking shots from her window. Her hair streams like a war banner, the courtyard her battleground.
Gunfire flares. Muzzle flashes light up the smoke. Bullets slam into the infected, others ping off the Hummer’s reinforced frame.
The vehicle swings wide, its tires screeching against the pavement as the girl circles the courtyard like a predator.
Every bullet finds a mark—one man drops, screaming, blood pouring from his thigh before an infected in a shredded navy suit tackles him and bites into his neck.
Another takes a bullet to the shoulder, his gun spinning away.
A third, rat tail and all, drops like a stone, shot clean through the skull.
More and more fall, crumpling to the ground as she carves a path of destruction.
We move fast, low, dodging corpses already bitten. Minutes, maybe less, before they rise and join the hunt. Fire crackles behind us, heat licking my back as we close in on the rear of the group.
I raise my handgun. Target locked. One clean shot, center mass. He drops to his knees with a strangled cry, fingers clawing his chest before going still. Undead mechanics still in their coveralls swarm him, making quick work of tearing his flesh from his body.
Beside me, Leon moves with effortless precision. He nocks an arrow, the bowstring singing as he releases. The shot punches a man’s eye socket, dropping him before he can even turn.
More infected pour through the breach, dozens, limbs twitching with unnatural speed. Milky, bloodshot eyes lock on to us, their rotting faces contorted with insatiable hunger. Then they sprint.
“Shit.” I raise my gun.
The first one’s fast. Its mouth stretches open, blackened teeth snapping, decayed fingers reaching. I shoot and its skull explodes like a popped balloon. Brain and bone splatter across the pavement.
“They’re fast today.” I reload.
Leon looses another arrow. It slices a woman’s neck, her long black braid bouncing, but she doesn’t slow.
“So, he does miss sometimes,” I mutter. I lift my pistol and drop a bullet clean through the forehead of a bloated jail guard, walkie dangling from his belt.
Leon looks over. Brow raised as though saying, Oh really? Without breaking eye contact, he draws and releases. The bowstring thrums. A thud follows. Black-haired woman collapses, arrow buried deep in her eye socket.
Leon flicks imaginary lint off his jacket with his middle finger. I bark a laugh and fire again, chest thrumming with adrenaline. God, I love this fucked-up life sometimes.
The horde peels away from the Hummer, drawn to easier prey—the men still outside the doors. Gunfire’s got them rattled, fear making them clumsy. They’re scrambling to fall back inside.
If they make it, we’re screwed. Our people won’t get out.
A shadow flickers, peripheral movement. A man rounds the corner, rifle raised—
Leon moves first.
He lunges, hatchet flashing in the firelight. The blade cuts deep into the side of the man’s skull, bone cracking under steel. A sharp gasp escapes his lips before Leon yanks the blade free, sending a fresh spray of crimson onto the ground. The man slumps, eyes already glassing over.
I step over it. Boots crunch through blood-slick dirt. Every sense is razor sharp.
Another shape stumbles into view.
Its face is a grotesque ruin, strips of flesh peeling from its cheeks, jaw slack, milky eyes locked on to mine. It snarls—wet, guttural, hungry—and lunges. It jerks, fingers twitching, grasping blindly. I twist, bone scraping against steel as I rip it free.
It drops.
But more are coming.
They shamble through the slits in the fence, one after another, locked on to the scent of fresh meat. No question who cut those gaps.
Is she here for our people?
Fire rips higher behind us. Whatever Leon rigged, it’s working.
The Hummer keeps circling, tires kicking up gravel and ash as she fires sporadically. She’s shouting now, taunting the men who try, and fail, to aim at her. There’s something wild about her, almost joyful, like she’s feeding off the madness.
And honestly? I get it as I take my pistol and start firing at the last few men blocking my path. There’s a strange liberation in the wreckage.
The entrance looms ahead, the heavy doors forced wide open. The fight’s spilled into the yard—blood, smoke, teeth. But the men aren’t retreating.
Wait.
Is that—
Earl rushes out the doors, rifle clipping, his face focused as he drops a guard and two infected women in matching hot-pink track suits in quick succession.
Edith follows, blade swinging, eyes locked on an undead reaching for Earl.
One quick slice—head gone. The head separates cleanly, black blood spraying as the body collapses in a twitching heap at their feet.
Further back, Jessica and Clair fight side by side, their movements jerky as they swing to keep the undead at bay with Poppy crouched between them. Jessica’s pipe caves in a skull. Clair’s knife stabs fast and clean. Blood sprays. Bodies fall.
Poppy grips her hammer with both hands and slams it into an infected’s leg. It lurches, Clair finishes the job, blade through the temple. Brain matter hits the dirt.
How the fuck did they get out? Where did they get weapons?
“Get to them!” My shout rips from my throat, smoke coating the words. I point, and Leon yanks an arrow from a corpse’s skull, his gaze snapping to Clair and Poppy, determination blazing in his eyes.
We charge forward, blades and bullets clearing a path. One step at a time. Through fire. Through blood. Through hell.
A pack of well-dressed undead seniors lurch into our path, sagging flesh, mouths gaping wide with hunger. I slash and shove, blade cutting through brittle bone, each strike fueled by desperation.
Leon’s hatchet cleaves through a neck. He kicks the body aside, already raising his bow. The arrow flies, punching into the skull of an infected inches from Clair and Poppy.
“Keep going, you Legolas badass!” I yell, jamming my blade through another skull as it lunges.
Leon surges ahead, locked in. His eyes snap between the horde and Clair.
Another arrow whistles, spearing an infected woman in a checkered red dress.
She crumples just as her claws swipe for Poppy’s arm.
The girl flinches but doesn’t stop, her small blade stabbing a twisted leg.
Jessica smashes her pipe into the infected’s skull, bone crunching loud.
The horde thickens, flooding through fence gaps like a tidal wave. The air is thick with the stench of death and smoke, every breath burning my lungs.
I swing again. Again. Blade sinking into flesh, splintering bone. Blood sprays, ours, theirs, doesn’t matter. No time to think. No time to process. Only move.
“Edith!” My voice cuts through flame and moans.
Her eyes meet mine—relief, fleeting—before she spins, blade slamming into a guard’s chest. The spear clatters from his hand.
She shouts something, my name, maybe, but the horde swallows it whole.
Earl fights beside her, blade flashing, face streaked with sweat and black blood, his graying hair matted, soaked red.
Leon’s arm whips back. He hurls the hatchet. It spins once—twice—buries itself deep in a sprinting corpse’s forehead that was about to chomp down on Clair’s exposed arm. Its legs fold midstride, its body hitting the ground in a twisted heap.
He reaches them and yanks Clair into his chest just as an infected crashes down inches from her, clawed fingers slashing empty air. Jessica slams her pipe into its skull.
Clair’s breath stutters, chest rising and falling in quick, frantic bursts. She turns and locks eyes with Leon, both sharing a look of terror and relief.
Poppy stumbles, her small frame folding from exhaustion. Leon catches her before she hits the ground, steady, firm, careful. She blinks up at him, hazel eyes wide, stunned. He motions for them to follow.
Another one charges. Leon pivots, arrow already nocked.
The body drops at their feet, a wooden shaft buried deep in its eye. Clair exhales, scoops Poppy up. The girl clutches her mother’s bloodstained shirt, knife dangling from weak, trembling fingers.
“Get them to Trish!” I shout through the gunfire.
Leon hesitates for a fraction of a second, just long enough for me to see the war in his eyes. He doesn’t want to leave. Doesn’t want to abandon me. But he nods, jaw tight, and grips Clair’s arm, steering them toward the fence.
I shove Earl and Edith after them, urgency coiled in my gut. “Edith, where is—”
Movement.
My stomach knots. Instinct slams through me.
I turn—
And the world sharpens to a single point.
A figure slips into the building, darting through the smoke and pandemonium. Jessica follows close behind, arms reaching, trying to stop her.
Mom.
The ground might as well vanish. My pulse hammers, drowning everything—the gunfire, the screams, the groans.
She’s alive.
And she’s running straight back into hell.