The seal bellowed behind him, and he flinched. He risked a glance over his shoulder, but it wasn’t humping up the beach toward him. It waited in the shallows, two black lumps by its side. The bags of gold.
It had all been for nothing.
The undead still waited. He studied his weapons. All useless. He had no idea what he needed to kill them. He squatted and risked another glance. The big guy in the centre with the beard and braids and skin the colour of a fresh bruise put his hand on his sword.
The pilot didn’t move.
The others, in clothing he couldn’t place, also waited. Could he wait and give the boat longer to come? If there were more of those undead things in the water, more seals, the boat was long gone. Sunk as soon as it had dropped them off.
Knife, firearms, grenade. The rifles would be useless. The pistol, too. The undead cared about bullet holes about as much as he cared about mosquito bites.
Grenade and knife it was. Decision made, he still hesitated before reaching out his hand, knowing as soon as he picked up his weapons it would break this truce.
He was the last man alive.
He owed it to the others to take out at least another one. He might be able to kill two before they destroyed him. If he was lucky it would be quick. His fingers brushed the grenade, but there was no honour in that, and his enemy had patiently waited for him.
His fingers closed around the knife.
The scrape of metal filled his ears as the Viking in the centre drew his sword, then flung it on the ground near the flames. Zac could reach it if he stuck his hand in the fire, but he was sure the sword hadn’t been meant for him. When he looked up the Viking had drawn a smaller blade. The fight would at least be equal.
Zac smiled and stood. “These guys keeping score?”
“To the death,” the pilot said. The first words any of the undead had uttered. The words were slow, as though they’d taken a lot of thought and effort to create.
“Yeah, I figured that.”
The Viking exhaled, and the flames between them were extinguished.
Fuck.
The Viking smiled and stepped forward. Every cell in Zac’s body told him to run, that death was imminent, and he should be doing everything he could to survive. He couldn’t hear the crash of waves over his pulse.
He’d seen plenty of dead, fresh and otherwise, but the dead had never gotten up to fight him. This guy should’ve rotted away long ago, but his skin looked like he’d recently died and the fur around his shoulders seemed ready to wake up and demand to be petted.
Zac blinked. He had to focus on the fight, not the weird.
Perhaps he was already dead and what was left of his brain was trying to make sense of it. But his ankle hurt, the ache was in his shin every time he moved. So, he wouldn’t move. He’d fight on the spot. He was dead anyway, so why prolong the torture?
The Viking took another step forward. It took everything Zac had not to break and run—or hobble. If he dropped the knife, would the Viking stop?
Could they stare at each other until Zac died of exhaustion?
This was an enemy that could easily out wait him. The undead didn’t worry about cold or hunger or thirst. Better to make it fast. Zac lunged forward, slashing the blade up, the Viking blocked. His arm was a solid lump of ice.
Zac stepped to the side and almost fell as his ankle gave way. The Viking knocked him off his feet and sent him sprawling. The stars gave a lazy spin as he struggled to draw breath. He had to get up.
He made it to his feet in time to defend. The attack was fast and deadly, the Viking more familiar with the weapon than Zac. A hot wound opened along his arm. He stabbed the Viking in the leg, but no blood spilled from the wound. Instead the Viking laughed. A chuckle like this was the best fun he’d had in years…decades…centuries.
Zac fought on, and the Viking created new wounds, though none were fatal.
The cold seeped through his clothes and made his muscles numb. Adrenaline had come and gone, and now he was slow. The other undead watched, not interfering in their leader’s fight.
Would they want their turn when the Viking was done playing with him?
He tripped again, gritting his teeth as his ankle crunched in a way that ricocheted pain through his entire body. The Viking barrelled into him, and they tumbled to the sand. Zac stabbed as best he could, trying to hack off the Vikings head, his grip on the blade loosened, slick with his own blood.
The Viking pinned his hand. His eyes were blue, and he smiled as he brought his knife to Zac’s throat.
“Do it you big, dead bastard.”
The Viking nodded.
The cut was hot, instead of painful. He choked and couldn’t breathe. Then he panicked, which only made it worse. His mouth was full of blood. He’d been four the first time he’d been slapped in the face and had tasted blood.
Lost a tooth in a fight at sixteen.
Frag in his leg. Bullet through the arm.
A lifetime of violence. He coughed, and his head lolled to the side. The little pebbles that made up the beach weren’t round. The closest ones came into focus. They weren’t stone at all, but little bits of white bone. He blinked. Blinked again and the beach and stars were gone.
Sunlight glanced off gold.
Zac squinted at the bright light. The roof of the barrow had fallen in. No, he remembered rolling the grenade in to collapse the tomb. His brain stuttered as it put together an impossible story of zombies.
Something had happened, and he wasn’t sure what, only that he was here, and he wasn’t supposed to be. He sat up. His body
