Chapter 2
An Injured Girl
Hailey smiled when the dead men scampered toward her, not because she was happy to see them.
It was more of a reflex: you smile when you see someone approach.
Even if you’re lying injured on the subzero Alaska tundra with no coat, no hat, and no mittens, even if your head is cemented to the ground with frozen blood.
And especially if you’ve been lying there long enough to stop shivering.
It was relief.
She’d half-expected to see the homicidal immortal who’d put her there in the first place, and so maybe she actually was happy. Well, happy or not, she couldn’t survive much longer—that much she knew—and she certainly didn’t want to be rude in her final moment, not even to zombies.
So she smiled, even as a panicked whimper escaped her lips.
What else could she do? Even if she did feel an urge to escape, she was literally stuck there. Not that she was afraid of these guys; she just didn’t want them touching her. Nobody did. Even with gloves.
Also, she was clinging to the belief that after “a quick rest,” she’d be fit to somehow get herself back to campus, climb into the exploded library, dig through the piles of books, find her lost roommate, and regroup with Asher, because the events of the entire day were all jumbled in her aching head, and she wasn’t sure if she was still on the run from Cobon the maniac Envoy.
Zombies would only delay her.
And now a full dozen of the university’s creepiest were closing in, and her options were few.
Clearly, it was too late to hide, and running away was definitely out.
She’d already tried and failed to stand.
That was after she’d first landed on the crusty snow, rolling and tumbling until she’d hit a giant rock.
Thankfully her flight through the frigid air had numbed just about everything, but still, the snow hadn’t cushioned her landing at all.
Windswept and packed tight, it was more like landing on cement.
She was pretty sure both ankles and possibly a knee were broken, and she’d been shivering too violently to do little more than curl up in a ball anyway.
At least the pain was manageable. Compared to her other freshman year mishaps, this sat on the discomfort scale somewhere between stepping on a carnivorous splinter and falling out of the cargo plane mid-flight.
Her injuries here seemed hardly worth a fuss really, but this bitter December cold was downright agonizing.
She badly needed a rescue.
But these weren’t rescuers.
These were the Bear Towne University extraction team, and Hailey braced herself for their unique brand of "care."
The first zombie slid to a kneel at her side. She watched it lift her limp arm and drop it onto the snow-concrete with a weak phwump. It looked broken; it looked like it should hurt, but it felt like nothing. Like watching a fake arm in a low-budget documentary.
The rest of the campus I-MET crew encircled her, hollow-eyed and staring out at her from behind gray ski masks, each surveying a different limb, and one holding up a small blowtorch, which was a bit alarming, but honestly the whole scene was horror.
It wasn’t just the black-hole eyes that creeped her out.
It was the crackling, static-laced hissing sounds they made to each other, sounds that raised every frosty hair on her body.
The way they moved—in quick, stunted, jerky spasms—didn’t exactly inspire courage either. And hers was not a lonely opinion.
Bear Towne University’s search and rescue team was notorious, first because they were undead and so hideous they always wore masks, and second, because they weren’t exactly gentle.
She remembered that much from freshman orientation, just four months prior.
That and they were called the “In-between Management and Extraction Team,” though you never actually wanted to meet I-MET—they only mounted a rescue if you were close to death.
Hailey had already been dead once that day.
Once was enough.
She did her best not to cringe when a pair of spindly hands gripped the sides of her head, even as the blowtorch disappeared behind her, and she actually relaxed a little when another threw a fur rug over her, despite the steam rising from her ears and the unmistakable odor of burning hair.
But before long, her head was liberated.
A zombie paramedic, this one with a red number 3 sewn onto his sleeve, grasped her under the shoulders; another grabbed her under the knees, and they dropped her onto a stretcher, which knocked what little wind she still had out of her aching lungs.
Ironically, she let out a moan not unlike a Hollywood zombie, and Red Number 3 put his face in hers.
She waved the air with her good arm, eyes wide as she sucked in a loud recovery breath. “Sorry,” she croaked, which seemed to satisfy him.
He pulled back, stuck his finger in the air, and made two quick circles. Four crewmembers lifted and balanced her stretcher as they sped through the White Forest, with Red Number 3 scouting the trail.
Surprisingly, I-MET moved her with grace. Despite their infamous shuddering lurch, there were no bumps, and Hailey let herself relax a bit, blowing a puff of breath into the night and watching it swirl with the stars as she flowed under them. So many stars…
And Asher.
Asher would see her at the hospital, she was sure of it. That’s what he’d said when he’d left to… When he’d left her…
See you soon.
It still echoed in her mind, even as she refocused.
Red Number Three was in her face again, this time holding a vial under her nose.
She flinched, blinking rapidly, and he wagged his finger at her, harsh fluorescent lights now overhead, blood swishing in her ears.
And now Giselle was in her face, wearing her worried scowl, or as worried a scowl as a banshee could manage. One might mistake it for disgust, but after a full semester as odd-couple roommates, Hailey could tell the difference.
“You’d better heal up fast,” Giselle’s voice wavered in and out, and she leaned closer. “We have a big problem.”