Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
DAKOTA
The sun sinks behind the tree line, painting the sky in murky orange and purple streaks. I drag my knife’s blade across the wooden porch railing, watching tiny splinters curl and fall.
Opposite me, Sienna sits with her back against the railing, a similar blade clutched in her hand. “Your mom giving you the silent treatment?”
“When she’s not giving me the ‘you’ve ruined everything’ look.”
“Fuck ‘em.” She stretches her legs out in front of her. “Not to be a bitch, but they were pretty shit parents before the world went to hell.”
I laugh, but it comes out more like a cough. “Says the girl whose parents cut her off and tried to force her into medicine.”
“At least mine never hit me.”
She’s right. Doesn’t make it easier.
I focus on the fence where Cameron and Ramirez stand guard, shotgun and rifle slung over their shoulders.
“Sorry.” Sienna nudges my foot with hers. “Too far?”
“No, it’s…” I chew my lip. Ramirez climbs to his lookout spot on top of the shed. “It’s fine. Just weird having everyone know.”
“If it helps, I think your dad coming in drunk and calling you a whore kind of overshadowed the ‘he used to hit me’ revelation.”
I snort, an ugly sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. “Great. Which do you think they’re gossiping about more—that or me sleeping with Julien?”
“Definitely the Julien thing.” She grins, then sobers. “How’s Amelia taking it?”
“She’s not screaming at me, which somehow makes it worse. Just this disappointed silence. Like I betrayed her.”
“Did you?”
“Good question.” Did I? Amelia loved him first, at least from a distance. I knew that. But then there was the church. The cabin. The lake. Everything changed. I changed. “I don’t know. Maybe I did.”
“Love isn’t a first-come, first-serve deal.” Her voice softens. “You can’t call dibs on a person. If Julien wanted her, he’d be with her. But seeing him so in love with you, she would’ve waited forever.” Her words hit deeper than she knows. “Pining from a distance while you were expected to…”
My shoulders tighten, vision blurring as I trace the knife against the grain. She moves closer, her arm wrapping around my shoulders. Her touch startles me, but I let myself lean into it.
“I’m sorry this is all fucked up,” she whispers into my hair. “But you’re allowed to choose something for yourself. Even if it’s messy.”
“Good girls clean up messes, they don’t make them.”
“Yeah, well.” Her arm tightens. “Good girls don’t survive zombie apocalypses either.”
I snort against her shoulder, tears mixing with laughter. “You’re terrible.”
“The fucking worst.” She pulls back to meet my eyes, face cracking into that wild grin of hers. “That’s why you love me.”
“I do, actually. I mean, this friendship thing. I’m really glad we… after everything that happened at the wedding.”
“That we trauma-bonded over your ex-fiancé and zombies?”
“Something like that.”
Her laugh vibrates through us both. “Me too. Apocalypse BFFs. Who fucking knew?”
The tension bleeds from my body as we sit there, shoulders pressed together, as the last light bleeds from the sky. I scan the perimeter again, searching for Julien.
Sienna waves her hand in front of my face. “Your man’s fine. Probably counting zombies or calculating optimal angles for decapitation or some shit.”
“I wasn’t—”
She nudges my shoulder. “I’d kill for a selfie of you two with the caption ‘Found love in a hopeless place.’”
My laugh gets cut short as something rustles outside the fence. “Did you hear that?”
Sienna goes still, head tilted. “Hear what?”
“I thought… Guess it was nothing.”
We both fall silent, straining to listen. The night air carries nothing but crickets and the distant hoot of an owl.
“False alarm,” I whisper after a full minute passes.
We settle back against the porch railing. Watching. Waiting. The moon inches across the sky, casting long shadows that play tricks on our tired eyes.
“This is the worst part,” Sienna says. “The waiting. Never knowing when they’ll come.”
I nod, eyes fixed on the tree line. “Or if.”
Another hour crawls by, and our conversation dwindles to occasional whispers, then to nothing at all. The silence wraps around us like a blanket, my eyelids growing heavy, but I force them open.
Beside me, Sienna’s head starts to droop. She jerks upright twice before finally surrendering, her body leaning into mine.
“S’okay if I rest my eyes?” Her cheek finds my shoulder, warm breath tickling my neck. “Just… five minutes.”
“Go ahead,” I whisper. “I’ll keep watch.”
Within seconds, her breathing deepens. I sit motionless, letting her sleep.
The night deepens. Midnight passes into that hollow darkness. Cameron and Ramirez remain at their posts, and Julien passes by every hour or so.
My neck cramps. My back aches. But I don’t move, not wanting to disturb Sienna, who’s now fully asleep on my shoulder, occasional soft snores escaping her lips.
It feels like we’ve been sitting here forever, and although the night sky slowly gives way to that deep pre-dawn grey, we still have a bit until sunrise.
It’s like holding your breath underwater, waiting to surface.
That’s when I hear it. A low moan drifts through the air, so faint I almost think I imagined it.
I freeze, listening hard.
There it is again.
Ramirez raises his rifle, scanning the tree line through the scope.
“See anything?” Cameron calls up.
Another moan, louder this time, joined by several others. Mindless groans of regular zombies, mixed with snarls and clicks that have a rhythm, almost a cadence to them.
“Movement on the east side,” Ramirez says. “Lot of it.”
“Sienna.” I jostle her. “Wake up.”
Her eyes open, confusion giving way to instant alertness as she straightens. I stand, knife clutched in my fist, as I move to the bottom of the steps, trying to see past the fence.
The first shapes emerge from between the trees—shambling, decaying forms with that telltale lurching gait. Regular zombies. But there’s a darker shape moving with more purpose behind them.
“Fuck.” Sienna comes up beside me, rubbing her eyes. “Is that—They look a lot more creepy than you told us.”
A taller figure lopes along the edge of the zombie group, head lowered, back hunched in that unnatural curve I recognize from that first night. A wolf zombie. And it’s… herding them? Directing them toward our gate with a series of clicking sounds, nudging stragglers back into line when they drift.
The wolf zombie pauses at the tree line, raising its distorted head. It makes a sharp clacking sound, like bones snapping together, that echoes through the evening air. From the darkness of the forest, similar sounds reply. First one, then another, then several more from different directions.
“What the hell?” Cameron’s voice rises with urgency. “Ramirez?”
Ramirez swings his rifle in a wide arc, checking all sides of the compound. His face goes ashen. “They’ve surrounded us.”
“How many?” I shout up to him.
“Too fucking many.” He adjusts his scope. “Zombies on every approach, at least fifty from what I can see. And those wolf things. They’re guiding them.”
The wolf zombie throws its head back and lets out a howl that raises goosebumps across my skin. Other howls answer from the forest, forming a nightmarish chorus that makes my stomach clench.
“They can’t get in, right?” Sienna’s voice wavers. “The fence—”
“It’ll hold.” Cameron reaches for the torch, striking a match against the fence post to ignite it. The flames catch, casting flickering orange light across his face. “Get back to the cabins. Both of you.”
“We’re not leaving you out here,” I say.
“Dakota!” My mother’s voice sends ice through my veins. I turn to see her crossing the compound, a tray balanced in her arms. “I brought coffee and snacks.”
No. Not now. Not her. “Mom, go back inside!”
She doesn’t listen, of course. Just keeps walking toward us with that determined stride, lips in a tight line that means she’s still angry but doing her duty anyway.
“Mrs. Levine!” Cameron waves his free arm. “Get back to the cabin!”
She pauses, frowning. “What’s going—”
A massive crash echoes from the far side of the compound like splintering wood and tearing metal.
Everyone freezes.
“They’re coming over the fence!” Ramirez yells.
From behind the nearest cabin, a black shape launches into the open space. It moves too fast to track, a blur of twisted limbs and matted fur.
And it’s headed straight for my mother.
It leaps, colliding with her in a tangle of claws and teeth. The tray goes flying. Food scatters. Her scream cuts through the night, high and terrified, before choking off as the wolf zombie’s jaws close around her throat.
“Mom!” I lunge forward, knife raised.
“No!” Sienna hauls me back by my arm. “You can’t!”
“Let me go!” I thrash against her grip, as blood sprays from my mother’s neck, dark against her pale skin. “Mom! MOM!”
Ramirez fires, the shot cracking through the air. The wolf zombie jerks, shoulder exploding in a spray of black ichor, but it doesn’t release my mother. Instead, it drags her, still twitching, toward the shadows between the cabins. Her hand reaches for me, then falls.
“Fuck!” Ramirez shouts, adjusting his aim.
Another wolf zombie emerges from behind the dining hall, loping on all fours toward Cameron. He fires his shotgun. The wolf shrieks, recoiling, but its eyes never leave Cameron’s face.
“Inside, now!” Ramirez jumps down from his perch, rifle still trained on the retreating wolf. “They’re coming over the fences!”
Sienna drags me toward the nearest cabin, her grip iron on my arm. “Move, Dakota! MOVE!”
My feet finally cooperate, stumbling backward, eyes still locked on the spreading pool of blood where my mother fell.
“Ramirez!” Cameron backs toward us. “Cover us!”
Ramirez fires twice more, driving back two more wolf zombies that appear at the edge of the compound. Regular zombies stagger against the gate, arms outstretched through the bars, moans building to a hungry chorus.