Chapter 14
fourteen
. . .
I only had the sharp-toothed guy for my defense. Would he eat me without Brika’s supervision? Zombies came pouring over the broken edge of the dock towards me, faster than the usual variety, with more teeth in their skulls. In other words, less decomposing, and more dangerous. Much more dangerous.
The water swirled just past the jagged edge of the dock, beneath the high drop. Did vampires know how to swim?
I chopped up two zombies and turned to take another one, while sharp-tooth moved in beside me, protecting that side so I wasn’t completely surrounded.
I liked working with Hazen better, but he was okay.
He didn’t go after zombies, just kept them from getting through him.
He didn’t seem panicked at the loss of his buddies or interested in munching my neck.
A few minutes later, Tom slipped in on my other side, swinging a knife with precision as he took his place.
“Sorry, I’m late. Gloria and I had a conversation that she probably considers an argument.”
I almost rolled my eyes, but who has time for that when slaughtering zombies? “How unreasonable of her.”
“Not at all. From her perspective, it was definitely an argument. She argued very well.”
“And you didn’t argue? You just gave in?”
“No, I held my ground. Can you feel the dock? We’ll need to retreat closer to land if we don’t want to be sucked in when it goes. Hopefully, your car doesn’t sink. I parked up on the road.”
“Thanks for the advice. Next time, maybe you could tell me before I park in the danger zone. What did she argue about and you not argue about?”
“I invited her to go to dinner with me. She argued that it was old-fashioned, antiquated, and chauvinistic of me to ask her. I am not fast-moving when it comes to females. Maybe it is all the reasons she gave for me, but I think that I like to be certain.”
“She’s never certain,” I said, kicked back a zombie so he could rip apart its brain.
“She is. She is incredibly sure of who she is and what she wants. She is not influenced by the opinions of others. I believe that her certainty changes, not that she doesn’t have any. I could be wrong.”
“There’s definitely truth to that. She’s strong-willed and fickle. What are you going to do?”
Brika came over the edge of the dock, soaking wet with a wet weed slicked across her forehead. She screamed and charged the zombies, ripping them apart with her teeth and claws like she’d taken the dunking personally. So much for being above extermination.
“Well,” he answered, doing a fancy double-cut, to take out three zombies in one slash of his two knives.
“I’m going to continue being slow until she’s decided whether or not she is interested with all of her multi-faceted heart.
There’s no hurry.” He sliced and diced, then turned in a graceful spin to off another zombie’s head, stabbing the brain with the other knife, and flipping both of those into the next zombie in line.
“Those moves are slick, Tom. When are you going to give me some actual training?”
“Don’t copy me. Stick to what you’re already doing. After a few years of that, you move onto prettier things. Go this way,” he said, nodding towards the land.
Brika broke past us with a war cry and started ripping and tearing a path towards the parking lot. Was it that desperate?
The dock shuddered and then splintered under my feet.
Sharp teeth guy lunged towards me, but a slimy body hit him, knocking him away into darkness while I plummeted.
It was like cliff jumping, only with boards and splinters.
I hit the water with a force that knocked out my breath.
It was so cold. The goopy bodies of zombies falling around and on me were super fun.
Fine. I’d do water extermination, no problem.
I was an okay swimmer after all the mom and kiddie classes I’d taken with Wat and Lock. Hopefully, Hazen would find Wat soon.
Hopefully my phone didn’t go down with my car, then I couldn’t call him for an update. I shoved my knife into a zombie and felt teeth chomp my other arm.
I spun around, exploding those brains, and then cut through another, and another, and another, while that wound bled, and ached, and possibly turned me into a zombie.
Fine. My life expectancy hadn’t ever been great once I’d been marked, but tonight, I was going to take as many of the monsters with me as possible.
I gritted my teeth and found a board full of nails to smash and slice a creature while I stayed afloat.
Something sank its teeth into my leg. Fun.
Like going to a birthday party with fifty three-year-olds.
If I could cope with that as a twenty-one-year-old, I could cope now.
I dove down, and sliced through brains, then kicked down, away from the shore to faster water.
I needed to get room to maneuver, and I needed to wash off the scent of nutmeg until I could get these bites treated.
The Grand Master’s antidote should help slow down infection, but it wouldn’t last forever.
As fun as it would be to not exterminate zombies every night, I had to get home in case Wat showed up, and I needed to not be a zombie.
I swam with my knife, only killing three of the monsters on my way to faster water.
They weren’t the best swimmers, but there were so many of them.
They clung together in groups like logs, and they didn’t need to breathe.
Could I make a raft out of zombies? Probably.
I had zip ties in my special supply pack with the lock picks.
I swam to the closest stack of zombies and started killing and stacking.
It was good camouflage to slide along in the water with the zombie raft.
Super disgusting, but effective, hiding in plain sight if the zombies were looking.
When I was far enough downriver that the shore sloped down and wasn’t teeming with the undead, I kicked to shore and then took some time to coat myself liberally in mud to keep down the marking scent.
It was an incredibly sexy look. I should do this for Halloween, sexy mud-ooze zombie slayer costume.
I staggered up far enough that I could sink down and catch my breath. I really needed to treat the bites, but I was so tired, and starving, and had no idea how far downriver I’d gone.
Well, I wasn’t going to find out lying around all night.
I headed inland, ran into a fence, and then wandered on until I saw lights ahead.
The spongy ground wasn’t solid enough for buildings, but it didn’t take long to hit blacktop, a road, and civilization.
I didn’t look so good. How far was I from the movie theater?
Ten miles? Twenty? No, probably not that far, but it would take too long to get there.
I had to go into one of those stores and not scare the people half to death, or I’d get shot, or at least thrown out.
I scrubbed my face with some weeds and wiped the mud off my arms as well as I could before I tucked my knife under my pants leg and then headed towards civilization.
It was so awkward to ask to use the phone at the gas station. I explained about getting lost on my night hike from my group and falling in the river.
The guy adjusted his ball cap and frowned seriously. “What bit you?”
I looked down at my arm and licked my lips. “Catfish? Shark? I don’t know. There are some strange things in the water.”
He leaned over the counter, pale blue eyes watery and intense. “On the night shift, I’ve seen things you would not believe.”
I tsked. “I believe. There are some freaky water monsters. Lochness? Totally real.”
He nodded his head. “It’s true! And we have some old monsters swimming up and down the Mississippi that could take off your head. I’m not talking snapping turtles, but there are some that get big enough to take off your arm.”
“No lie. Can I use your—”
The door jangled as it opened and Brika came in, soaking wet, and looking very inhuman.
“Oh, never mind. Brika, what happened to you? Did you lose the group too? Toby was going to let me use his phone.”
“No need. There’s a car outside. You need to go to the hospital to get those bites looked at. You never know what monsters are swimming around down there.”
I laughed, but the idea of turning into a zombie wasn’t super funny for some reason. The look on Toby’s face as he stared at Brika was pretty hilarious, though. She could bench press him, and he was not a small guy.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling at Toby.
“Sure,” he said, not taking his eyes off Brika. Was he enamored or just terrified? It was so hard to tell between those two things.
I headed outside and then stopped when I saw the limo. The Grand Master was inside that car. I had the sudden urge to run in the opposite direction and never stop, but I was bitten, and therefore needed the vile creature’s help.
The door opened, and I climbed inside, feeling self-conscious for getting all the beautiful leather muddy. The Grand Master was leaning over his knees, studying me, his face in shadows, fingers steepled.
“You look like a villain trying to be a supervillain, so you’re hitting all the right poses. Can you get the bites cleaned enough that I won’t turn? Shouldn’t you have sent Duke? He seemed to be your preferred infected flesh surgeon.”
“Duke is occupied. I sent him to kill the one who sent the hound to kill my exterminator.”
“Nice.” I sank into the upholstery and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see him do whatever he was going to do, but he didn’t do anything.
I smelled something delicious, sweet, with notes of floral, like nectar only mixed with something dusky, dark, sandalwood or myrrh. I opened my eyes to see blood welling out of the Grand Master’s wrist.
I needed it! I lunged for his hand and bent to drink, only to have him hold my forehead firmly.
“What are you doing, Mrs. Darnell? You’re a married woman. You don’t put your mouth on other men’s bare flesh.”