Panting, in pain, she watched him for a moment, until movement outside the rear hatch caught her eye. The dead had come, seeking the noise they’d made. Bunny leaned over, hands on her knees, and spit blood on his face as she tried to catch her breath.
"Damn it, woman," Peyton muttered as he rolled over. "You sure do know how to tease a man."
Bunny picked up the radio. "Shut up, dumbass."
Peyton laughed. "We gonna flirt like this every night, lover? Cause I have to admit, I do enjoy it."
Watching the rear hatch carefully, Bunny grabbed a sidearm from one of the dead soldiers and strapped it to her leg, throwing all the extra clips she could grab into the duffel bag Marco had sent with her. Glancing around, she grabbed a couple handfuls of magazines and dropped an assault rifle over her shoulder.
"Peyton, you are one dumb son-of-a-bitch," she told him as she straightened up.
"Come on, baby," he said. "We was just havin' some fun."
Bunny looked back at the hatch, saw them starting to crowd close and reached for the roof hatch. "Yeah, well, there was just one thing you forgot to find out about me before you tried this," she told him.
"What's that?" he asked.
"I never have been into guys," she said.
Bunny opened the hatch and stepped out, leaving him behind as the dead began to crawl into the vehicle. She side-stepped one on the street quickly, darting away before it could reach for her. Many more were coming, too damn many, and she unslung the rifle, preparing to fight her way through.
"Bitch, don't you leave me!" Peyton screamed.
The dead shifted towards his voice, groaning their hunger. Bunny lowered the rifle as they passed her, homing in on the sound of his voice. Steadying her breath, she moved quickly and quietly through them, clearing the mob before it could get too dense.
She didn't look back as she made her way, the sound of Peyton screaming at her echoing through the streets. She didn't slow down when she heard the gunshots, figuring he'd found a handgun. She didn't even blink when it got quiet again.
Bunny kept walking.
Chapter Ten
IT TOOK SEVERAL HOURS to get back to the clinic. Bunny had at first tried to retrace the path Peyton had led her down, but quickly found this wasn't possible. Too many of the dead had been drawn in by the noise they’d made, and the streets were more clogged with them than before.
Faced with this, she’d ended up taking a longer, more winding route back, skulking down back alleys and using cover whenever possible. Occasionally she'd been forced to stop moving for long stretches, waiting for the slow-moving corpses to clear out before she could continue.
During this time, Bunny noticed several things, first and foremost about herself, but also about the dead. Things she doubted she would’ve learned otherwise suddenly became clear, and she wasn't certain she was overly happy about any of them.
Despite what she'd told Rosa before, Bunny couldn't say now that survival alone wasn't enough. She'd left Peyton behind without a second thought, though a distracted part of her knew she would deal with it later. Still, the fact she’d done it said more about her than she was comfortable with.
More disturbing to her than that was the simple fact that Rosa had been right. It’d only been two days since things had gone south, and people like Peyton existed. Never mind that there had always been people like him in the world, the fact that her survival in this new world could hinge on dealing with them was what bothered her.
How she’d dealt with Peyton wasn’t a precedent she hoped to set, but again, she had to admit, it probably would be. She couldn't say she was entirely comfortable with that, either.
What she learned about the dead, however, was for more unsettling than what she learned about herself. During the times when she had to sit quietly, watching them as they moved by, she noticed things she couldn't ignore. Small things that made her realize this situation was far worse than she’d imagined.
Many of the dead roaming around were the same. Largely mindless, they were drawn to sound, actively looking for any sign of movement. They seemed to understand the difference between their own movement, and live movement, too, which spoke of at least a basic working brain.
There were others though. The ones that didn't seem to use their eyes at all. Their hearing seemed enhanced, as did their sense of smell, and more than once Bunny found herself having to backtrack to avoid being picked up by them. Somehow, in death, they’d become better predators.
As bothersome as those were, it was the ones that didn't shamble that frightened her more. Unlike even the blind ones, these moved more like a living person. Faster and more agile, she saw them leaping over cars in their way, and in one case, climbing a fence.
Whatever had happened to cost the normal ones their agility and motor reflexes hadn't affected them, making them harder to escape, but easier to avoid, as it seemed to come at the cost of the detection abilities. One had walked within inches of her and seemed unaware of her presence.
Whatever had brought this on, it appeared to affect some people differently, creating different kinds of dead. The one thing they seemed to have in common, for the most part, was their need to keep moving. Only a few she saw in her trip back to the clinic ever stood still, much
