"I got it," D.J. said.
Rudy wished the man hadn't used the words "hit the bottom." They brought up terrible images in his mind.
****
Masterson crawled down the rope, mindful of the girl on his back. She weighed next to nothing to him. He was tall and strong, and though he didn't look it, he had grown stronger over the last few months as his weight had dropped. His back worked better now, and his arms had burned away all softness, leaving behind bony things laced with tendons and veins that stood out as he lowered himself.
The girl coughed once on his back, a strangled and pathetic sound.
"It's gonna be alright," he said.
She didn't respond.
Below him, he could hear his friends fighting for their lives. He had to get down there and fast. When he was ten feet from the ground, he felt pressure on the back of his neck. He tried to ignore it and focus on descending the rope, his mind spinning as to what the pressure could be. He gripped the rope tighter, and then he felt the pain as the skin of his neck was ripped away by the tiny teeth of Hope.
He released his grip to smack at the child on his back. And then he was falling. His scream was short, and then Masterson hit the ground, the impact lessened by the child on his back and the snow at the base of the cliff.
He rolled to his feet, panic welling up in him. He unstrapped the child from his body, and she slid off of him, her hands and arms still grasping at his clothing. He spun around to look at her, hoping that he wouldn't see what he was expecting. But the smell of blood in his nostrils let him know that he would be disappointed.
The girl got to her feet, pawing up at him, trying to rip through his winter clothing. He pushed her back with an unsteady arm. Blood. On her face. His blood. A wet sob escaped his throat, and with tears in his eyes, he pulled his hatchet free. He swung it hard as his own blood streamed down the back of his thermal undershirt.
She fell into the snow, gone forever, and Masterson waded through the snow to fight next to his brothers one last time.
****
When the man carrying D.J. hit the ground, he said, "Oh, shit." D.J. had heard worse over the last week with the soldiers, but it still got his attention. The man unstrapped D.J. and told him to stand against the cliff so he'd be safe. Then he was off and running to fight the dead. The soldiers called them Annies, which D.J. still found funny.
He turned and saw his sister lying on the ground behind the protective ring of soldiers. He walked over to her and looked down at Hope. He squatted down next to her. She looked awful. He held her hand, ignorant of the battle around him.
****
Tejada hit the ground last. He paused a moment to see the boy squeezing his dead sister's hand. There was no doubt that she was dead, and he promised to not let the boy end up the same way. He spun and watched his people fight for their lives, taking note of the blood on the back of Masterson's neck. He had seen something strange happen from up above, but he had held out hope all the way down the side of the cliff. With his fears confirmed, Tejada held his hatchet before him and joined the semi-circle of survivors, for they all fought now, including Rudy and Amanda.
They came in waves, and Allen and Brown dropped back to take a breath and let the strength in their arms come back. Tejada stepped forward, putting everything he had into each chop. He didn't pay attention to the Annies. They were nothing to him, dead things that needed to be put down like rabid dogs.
His men had done a good job of thinning out their numbers, but he could see more coming at them through the trees.
Then he heard something else… the sound of gunshots in the distance. He finished his swing, felling another Annie. Then he heard the sound again. Definitely a gunshot. He didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse. The gunshot would draw more of the Annies in that direction, but it would also bring more to the forest if there were more about.
He silently thanked whoever was firing the rifle in the distance, and then he chopped down a three-hundred-pound man in motorcycle gear, thankful that he wasn't wearing a motorcycle helmet.
Chapter 20: Open House
Katie stood watching Tammy on the bed. All around her, she heard the thumps and scrapes of the dead outside as they brushed up against the dry, ancient wood of the ranger station. They were all armed now. Spears were readied, sharpened to points by Dez and her knife. Their tips were hardened in the fire. The rifles were loaded and distributed throughout the ranger station. Their petty differences, the murderous past that they all shared and held each other in contempt for, those things were gone now.
They knew the only way they would survive would be to kill enough of those things to escape. According to Mort, there was a three-foot gap in their defenses. Without a tractor or a working truck, they had no chance of getting the trailer back into place, not without the dead crawling all over them. Their only hope was to make a break for it, and flee into the woods, hoping to keep a step ahead of the dead.
She tried to count the number of dead outside by the noises they made. One, two, three… the baby cried, shrill and loud. The noise penetrated her
