He nodded. “We stick together, no matter what. Don’t get separated, got it?”
Dylan nodded. “Got it.”
With a piercing cry, she gripped her spear with both hands and ran at the nearest cluster of zombies, flanked by her friends. An infected turned toward her, a snarl fixed onto its lips. Two more joined it, while another crawled across the ground, its broken legs dragging in the sand.
Tara blasted the crawler with her shotgun while Saul picked off two more with his handgun. Dylan thrust the point of her spear through the crawler’s eye, popping the eyeball and skewering the brain. Putrid liquid sprayed from the ruptured socket, and the corpse sagged in death. With one foot planted on its shoulder, she yanked her weapon free.
Not pausing for a second, she whirled in a circle. The spear swept across the ground, taking the feet out from underneath another infected. She jammed the point through its throat, pinning it to the earth. The blade sliced through the neck vertebrae. Paralyzed from the neck down, the infected could do nothing but growl with insane fury.
Another zombie came howling toward her, closing the distance with frightful speed. Dylan tried to pull out her spear, but it was buried too deeply to remove in a hurry. Abandoning the weapon, she pulled her machete from its sheath. With both hands wrapped around the handle, she slammed the edge down onto her attacker’s skull. It cleaved through the bone and buried itself deep into the brain.
A cry caught her attention, and Dylan looked up in time to see Sergeant Dean go down beneath the writhing bodies of two zombies. Yanking the machete free, she launched herself at the fallen soldier. With a powerful blow, she hacked into the nearest infected’s neck. Its head flopped to the side, and she booted it in the ribs with a solid kick. It rolled away in a flurry of arms and legs, and she turned back to the sergeant.
The second zombie had both hands buried in the soldier’s jacket, its teeth clacking together as it sought to get a bite. Sergeant Dean was struggling to keep it at bay and failing. Just as she reached them, the infected lunged forward and bit into the man’s exposed wrist.
Dylan grabbed the zombie by the hair and tore it away from the wounded soldier. Rage flooded her mind, and red encroached on the edges of her vision. She could feel the effects of another episode nudging at her brain, seeking to take over. Gritting her teeth, she tried to control it. Think of Amy. Think of Alex. Think of anything but blood and death.
But its lure was like a siren’s song, and before she could stop it, a curtain of darkness fell across her thoughts. Tossing the infected to the ground, she rammed the machete into its open mouth.
With her other hand, she reached for the Glock and pumped several bullets into the zombie’s head. Its face disintegrated into a mass of blood and bone. Without stopping, she pulled the machete from its maw, breaking several teeth in the process.
With the blade in one hand and the gun in the other, she stormed the undead ranks. Like a whirling dervish, she cut through their bodies, spilling blood and guts onto the cold earth. The sand soaked it up like a sponge, hungry for its share of death.
Tara and Saul were forgotten in her frenzy to kill. All that mattered was the rage that had her in its grip, its hold on her mind relentless. Merciless.
When one magazine emptied, she replaced it with another and another until she ran out. Tossing the gun to the ground, she used the machete to chop through skulls and vertebrae. After a while, the edge grew dull with repeated use.
With a frustrated cry, Dylan yanked out her knife and threw herself at a zombie woman. They tumbled to the ground, and she pinned the infected down with her knees. Her arm rose and fell as she stabbed the woman in the face, over and over again. Without realizing it, she was screaming. Black blood splattered her face and soaked the front of her clothes, and still, she didn’t stop.
“Dylan!”
The voice came from a distance.
Far away.
Unreal.
“Dylan, please!”
It was closer now.
Familiar.
“Dylan, stop. It’s over. They’re all dead!”
Dylan paused her relentless attack and cocked her head. “Tara?”
Tara’s face appeared above her shoulder. “Yes, it’s me.”
“It’s over?”
Tara nodded. “The zombies are dead. All of them.”
“Really?”
“I promise.”
As suddenly as it came, the rage receded from her mind, leaving Dylan drained and empty. She crawled to her feet and stared at her crimson hands with shock. The metallic taste of blood coated her tongue, and her muscles trembled with fatigue.
“We did it? We beat them?” she asked, still unable to gather her shattered thoughts.
“Yes, we did,” Tara replied with a broad smile. “We won.”
Dylan returned her smile as a wave of triumph crashed over her. Yes!
Tara tugged at her arm. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up. You’re covered in gore.”
Dylan looked at her stained clothes and wrinkled her nose. “You’ve got that right, but what about Saul?”
“I’m staying here to help with the clean-up,” Saul replied, appearing from the side. He handed her the Glock she’d tossed earlier, and she accepted it with a smile. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” He threw her a cryptic look before turning to Tara. “You’d better get her out of here.”
“I will,” Tara replied, her expression somber. “Come on, Dylan. Let’s go.”
“Um, okay,” Dylan replied with a frown. Why are they acting so weird?
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Of course not. I just think we should get you washed up in case Major Reed wants to speak to you,” Tara replied.
“Makes sense,” Dylan replied, shrugging off her concerns.
With Tara taking the lead, she walked past the surviving soldiers. The path was littered with corpses, and she had to pick their way through with care. As Dylan stepped over one body, she spotted her spear sticking up into the air. The infected was
