Page 10 of Romancing in Rot

“Damn it,” I mutter under my breath.

Lyla steps up beside me, nudging the corpse with her boot and flicking her long blond ponytail over her shoulder. “You hesitated.”

“I noticed.”

She arches a brow. “Then fix it.”

Easy for her to say.

“Bullets run out,” Lyla says, tapping my hand. “Fists are forever.”

Yeah.

Well.

My fists kind of suck.

I force my hand back around the knife and stare harder at the corpse instead. Its head rests at a bad angle, mouth still open, teeth bared like it’s offended it didn’t get to finish the job.

A crash splits the silence inside the store behind Leon.

He turns first, bow rising.

The front window explodes outward.

Not one infected.

Four.

They spill through the broken glass in a tangle of dead limbs and hungry mouths, shoving over each other to get to us. One hits the pavement hard and crawls forward on its stomach, dragging a twisted leg behind it. Another staggers upright with a shard of glass buried in its cheek. Two more lurch out behind them, groaning loud enough to wake every corpse left in town.

“Shit,” Lyla snaps. “Spread out.”

Trish fires at the crawler before it can grab Joanie’s ankle. Joanie jumps back with a yelp, then swings her knife down into its skull.

“Rude!” she shouts. “Very rude!”

Lyla catches the second infected by the collar, spins it into the side of a parked car, and drives her blade up under its chin. Trish pivots toward the third, gun raised, jaw tight and focused.

The fourth goes for Leon.

He draws and releases, but the infected jerks sideways at the last second, the arrow punching through its shoulder instead of its skull. It slams into him with enough force to drive him back against the hood of a rusted sedan.

“Leon!” I shout.

His bow skids across the pavement.

The infected claws at him, jaws snapping inches from his face as he gets one forearm jammed under its throat. Its fingers hook into his jacket. One hand catches in his hair and yanks his head back.

Move.

My knife is in my hand.

The thing is on him.

Everyone else is busy. No one can get to him fast enough.

Except me.