Death's Awakening (31 page)

Anger raced through her
veins. She’d gone through the trouble of deciding she wanted to
live and now they were going to kill her anyway. This sucked.

She wasn’t going
to go down without a fight.

She kind of wished
she’d brought the gun with her now, but it was way too late for
that. She held her golf club tight in her hands and turned in
circles, watching as the two tall rotters stepped into her space.

The smell of them was
overpowering. Like rotten flesh on crack. Bile stung the back of her
throat, but she swallowed it down. She had to think of something or
she was going to get eaten by these things.

Then she remembered
Noah’s dad and her skin began to tingle.

At the time, she’d
thought it was some kind of stress reaction to believe that she’d
actually been talking to a mindless zombie with the force of her own
mind. People had said a lot of things about her in her short sixteen
years on this earth, but no one had ever said she had a strong mind.

Still, she had talked
to it. Almost commanded it.

And it had listened.

As the taller ones
reached her, she knew it was her only hope. Her only chance. She
stilled her mind and closed her eyes, not wanting to see if their
teeth ripped into her flesh anyway.

She focused on them,
sending her thoughts to them.

Stop.

She practically shouted
it in her head, putting all the force of her belief behind it.

When she didn’t
feel her skin being torn from her body, she opened her eyes just a
little and peeked out the one on her right. His face had gone slack
and his eyes dimmed. They were still red, but less glowy.

She snapped her eyes
shut and took in a calming breath.

You will not move.
You will not touch me.

She opened her eyes
again and took a better look. Both of the tall zombies were standing
there, their arms limp at their sides and their eyes staring straight
ahead.

Some kind of white-hot
energy hummed inside her skin. She felt connected to them, as if
there were an invisible rope of energy tying them to her thoughts. As
long as she didn’t break that line, she could control them.

A gunshot off toward
the back pulled her attention and she turned without thinking.

One of the taller
zombies moaned and lifted his hand toward her.

Oh crap.

Karmen climbed onto a
large desk in front of her and turned back toward the two zombies.
She couldn’t let anything destroy her focus or she was gone.

She concentrated again,
centering herself as much as she could. She focused on that bright
light within, her skin growing so warm, sweat trickled down between
her shoulder-blades. She commanded them to stop. To wait. To be
still.

And they were.

Parrish lifted her
sword to the giant zombie.

He narrowed his red
eyes at her, then reached out and took the sharp end of the sword in
the palm of his hand. Parrish struggled against his grip, but the
blade didn’t even slice through his skin. He yanked the sword
out of her hands and flung it to the side.

Parrish’s jaw
dropped open and her breath became short and shallow.

Noah rushed forward
with his bat, but even a blow to the head didn’t phase it.

The giant zombie’s
red eyes focused in on Parrish alone. He wanted her. The truth of it
slammed into her. This thing had been sent for her and it wouldn’t
stop until she was dead.

She was caught now
between the side of the room and the zombie, with no real escape. All
she had were her fighting skills. Skills she didn’t even know
how or why she possessed.

Still, she had to trust
that she knew these things for a reason. She had to believe in
herself.

Parrish moved into
fighting stance, ready to face whatever would come.

A strange coolness
pulsed through her and she noticed with astonishment that the tips of
her fingers were glowing with a bright blue light. She brought her
palm in front of her face, fanning her fingers out and turning her
hand around to study it. Deep inside her core, she could feel the
pulse and energy of that blue light. She didn’t understand it,
but somehow, she knew she could use it. Control it.

Following her
instincts, she closed her fists and concentrated all of her energy
into them. She felt the power flow down the length of her arms. It
was cool and calming, growing brighter and more radiant. She thrust
her hand forward, aiming at the giant zombie. A flash of blue shot
out from her fingertips, sending him backward.

Ice hardened on her
fingertips, then fell to the ground like crystals, melting as they
hit the carpet.

“What the hell
did you just do?” Noah shouted.

“I have no idea,”
she said, her voice trembling.

She didn’t have
much time to ponder what had happened, or to celebrate her victory.
Karmen screamed and Parrish turned to see that the two stretched-out
zombies had come out of their temporary comas. They reached out
toward Karmen, their long arms stretching far in front of them.

Without taking time to
think about it, Parrish launched herself toward the closest zombie.
She jumped on top of a desk, then somersaulted across another, flying
across the room and finally landing on top of the closest
stretch-monster. He went tumbling to the ground, knocking down his
partner as he fell.

Parrish quickly got to
her feet again, grabbed a letter opener off the desk where Karmen
stood, and shoved it straight through the eye of the first
stretch-monster. The zombie let out a single piercing scream, its
body convulsing for a moment before it went still and its eyes
dimmed. The second stretch-zombie was climbing to his feet, but
Parrish was too fast for him. She spun around with all her might and
sent a flying kick straight into the zombie’s hip. He tumbled
to the ground once more and she jumped into the air, coming down on
his chest with both feet, trapping him.

Noah rushed up, bat in
hand, and swung fiercely down at the thing’s head, crushing it
instantly. Bright red blood splattered from its eyes, then blackened.

Parrish let out a huge
sigh. They were all dead. It wasn’t over yet, because the sun
was setting fast and soon the hordes would come out into the streets,
but for now, they were alive and that was all that mattered.

She stepped over the
stretch zombie. She turned toward the back of the room, determined to
retrieve her sword before they left.

She made it halfway
across the distance before the trench-coat zombie rose from the spot
where he had fallen. Parrish stopped in her tracks, then turned and
ran back toward the others. Whatever she’d hit him with earlier
must not have been enough. It had only stunned him.

Trench stood and
roared, the sound so low it vibrated the floor and walls.

He was so big and slow,
it would take him some time to get to them, but he plowed through the
debris like a truck.

“We need a plan,”
Parrish said.

“He’s too
strong,” Noah said, clutching his leg. He must have gotten hurt
somewhere in the madness. “I can’t even begin to hurt
it.”

“Are you okay?”
she asked.

“I’ll be
okay,” he said. “Watch out!”

Parrish rolled out of
the way as a desk came down on the spot where she had been standing.

Trench lifted another
desk high in the air.

Parrish wasn’t
sure how she’d done it before, but she needed to figure out
where that blue light had come from.

She breathed in, then
held her palms out in front of her just like she’d done before.
She reached deep inside herself, searching for it. Trusting that it
was there and that it was real. A cold blossomed inside her and the
blue light flowed from it like water. It was as if she’d
untapped some secret well inside her soul.

Her fingertips began to
glow a bright blue and when the light was bright enough, she thrust
her hands forward, sending the cold energy toward the giant zombie.
It hit him square in the back and he fell to his knees with a groan.

She summoned her energy
again and sent it toward him again. This time, she was able to send a
steady stream of light toward him and as it hit his body, a hard
shell of ice began to form over him. He lifted his arm in protest,
but the ice flowed over him and solidified, holding him to the spot.

“Run!”
Parrish shouted. Noah grabbed Karmen’s hand and pulled her up,
running to Parrish’s side. The three of them all turned toward
the front of the office and ran toward the street.

Then she remembered her
sword.

“Go, I’ll
be right behind you.”

She jumped and ran
through the debris, found her sword and ran back to the others.

Outside, the sun was
almost completely gone, leaving the city in darkness. The street that
was almost empty just a few minutes earlier was now beginning to fill
with undead. Parrish searched the faces of the zombies in the street,
looking for any sign of glowing red eyes like the mutants. To her
great relief, she only saw slow, lumbering zombies with milky-blue
eyes. Of course, her relief turned to hopelessness when she realized
how many of them there were.

They poured from every
entrance, every broken window, their mouths open and hungry. They had
either smelled human flesh or been attracted to the noise of the
fight. Out here in the middle of the street, killing them wouldn’t
be as easy as it had been before. Instead of the handful they had
faced earlier, there were now hundreds. They were never going to make
it to Crash’s.

“What are we
going to do?” she asked, raising her voice over the moans of
the zombies in the street.

Tears ran down Karmen’s
face. “I don’t want to become one of those things.”

“We fight,”
Noah said, reaching out for Parrish’s hand. “We won’t
ever give up.”

Parrish concentrated on
the feel of Noah’s hand on hers. There was no denying the
attraction between them. It may have taken the end of the world to
bring them together, but she wasn’t about to let a few zombies
spoil her chance of ever kissing him. She gave him a smile, then let
go of his hand and turned to fight, her sword lifted.

Then, in the distance,
the sound of machine guns.

Crash plowed through a
huge group of Z’s, his Army-issue Hummer having no problem
driving right over the top of the ones that had fallen. When he was
surrounded, he moved to the guns he’d mounted on top.

Moving in a circle, he
sprayed the area, whooping as dozens fell to the ground.

When he’d cleared
a decent path, he hopped back down into the driver’s seat and
punched the gas.

He’d brought the
radio and a tablet with him so he could still see the cameras he’d
hacked into. The three of his friends he’d come to rescue were
just up ahead on the left side of the street.

It was a bumpy ride,
but he made it to them just in time. A large group of Z’s was
pouring from the buildings around them. He was glad to see them still
standing, ready to fight.

Crash pulled up next to
them and waved. He reached back and grabbed one of the guns he’d
brought. An AK-47 assault rifle. He tossed it to Noah, then reached
for another.

It took them an hour to
clear the area, but when they were finished, there was a pile three
bodies deep in every direction.

“Hell yeah,”
he shouted, lifting his gun in the air.

He’d never felt
so alive in his life.

He’d been playing
video games since he was a kid, but nothing compared to holding a
real gun in your hand instead of a controller. To be honest, he’d
never been a big fan of guns when they were used to shoot real,
living breathing human beings. But these Z’s? Man, he’d
keep shooting till he’d killed them all.

Below him, Parrish
laughed. “Having fun?”

“Are you kidding
me?” He whooped again.

“You must be
Crash,” Noah said. He reached his hand up and Crash clasped it
tight. “You got here just in time.”

“I can tell,”
he said, surveying the damage again. “So what was giving off
that crazy heat signature? Was it just some kind of glitch or
something?”

“I wish,”
Parrish said. She slung the rifle across her shoulder, then leaned
down to grab a backpack that was on the ground. “We’ll
fill you in on that later. I think we’d better get out of here
before any more of those things come after us.”

“You said you
have a shower with hot water at your place, right? You better not
have been lying, because right now that’s the only thing I’m
living for.”

Crash took in the
beautiful blonde standing to the side. She was even more gorgeous in
person than on video. He whistled and ran his hand through his hair.
He suddenly felt nervous and awkward.

“Uh, yeah,
there’s hot water,” he said. “But first, there’s
one more thing we need to do.”

“You’ve got
to be kidding me,” Barbie said. She even stomped her foot when
she did it. So stinking cute.

“No,” he
said with a laugh. “I’m not kidding. It shouldn’t
take more than a minute or two.”

He looked up at the
tall building to his right. Somewhere in there was the fifth. He was
sure of it. They were hiding in a closet, scared of the noise.

Just like in his dream.

Parrish watched as
Crash hopped down from his Hummer and started toward the building
across the street.

She had no idea what he
had in mind, but after all he’d done for them, she was willing
to go along with it. She just hoped they didn’t run into any
more of the zombies with the red eyes.

They stepped over piles
of dead rotters and Parrish tried not to think about the fact that at
some point not that long ago, these were real people with jobs and
families and hopes and dreams.