****
Allen marveled at the brightness of the sun. It had been so long since he had seen it. He welcomed it like an old friend. It blasted off the surface of the snow, creating a glare that he had to squint to see through, but the sunshine felt good on his vitamin-starved skin.
They moved through the snow, and images of dogsleds popped into his head. Imagine how much easier this would all be if they had dogs pulling them along. But no, they were the dogs; they were pulling their own sleds.
They passed a Best Buy on the right, a bank on the left, and then they saw the source of the gunfire. A woman stood with her back to the sliding glass doors of a Target. The dead closed in on her position.
"I see someone," Allen called back to Tejada, pointing with his free hand. His other held a hatchet that dripped with blood, thick like maple syrup.
"Let's get 'em on our side," Tejada called. "Make some noise. We got 'em spread out, so no guns. Every Annie within a mile is probably on its way here, so let's be quick about it. Guns are a last resort."
With the rules of engagement established, Allen put on a burst of speed. He whooped and hollered, trying to get the attention of the dead. It worked. Those Annies closest to him turned, spinning in the snow, and they came at him. He hefted the hatchet in his hand as he sprinted past the first one. It felt good to run. It felt good to push himself. He put everything he had into his first swing, and he felt the meaty crunch of the hatchet as it dug into the Annie's skull. It dropped to the ground immediately, and he placed a boot on its jaw, bent down, and yanked his hatchet free.
All around him, he heard the hollering of the others. Whiteside unleashed a stream of profanity-laced screams that almost made him laugh. But death was dancing on the snow with them, unseen, ready to rear its ugly head at any second. There wasn't time for laughter.
"Get some of this shit, you fucking cunts," Whiteside yelled, drawing the dead toward him. He chopped down the nearest one. "Get some of this dick."
Why would they want your dick? Allen thought as he brought down another Annie. That's weird as fuck. He had no time to dwell on Whiteside's words. The dead were thick around the Target, and more were slogging towards them in the distance, pushing their way through the snow.
Allen strode forward, one eye on the woman in front of the Target, and the other on what was in front of him. If she went down, there would be no point in going after her, although the cart piled high with food might be worth a quick scavenge.
She stood firm next to the cart, her head shaved down to the skin. He could see the bags underneath her eyes, even from a hundred feet away. She wielded her shotgun like a sword, although he didn't think she was trained. As he watched, she swung the rifle towards an Annie stumbling towards her from straight ahead. The angle of the shotgun was aimed perfectly in his direction.
"Down!" he yelled before flopping into the snow. He heard the thunderous boom of the shotgun, and then he pushed himself up on his hands and knees in time to see a body fall backward, blood oozing from a destroyed skull.
"Watch where you fucking shooting!" Whiteside called to her.
"Come to us!" Tejada shouted, for they were within shouting distance.
Allen didn't know if the woman heard them. She broke the breach of her shotgun and fumbled in her pocket for two shells. She slid them in and closed the breach. Smooth. No hesitation. No shaking. She wasn't afraid. He chopped down another Annie, the vibration of the blade against skull rattling his arm up to the elbow. His hand stung from the vibrations.
As the woman scanned the field of the dead before her, Allen kept an eye on the barrel of her shotgun, ready to dive into the snow if she attempted another ill-advised shot. She made no move to run. She didn't seem to even notice that they were there.
A dozen of the dead stood between him and the woman. They would be able to save her.
****
Day strutted forward, the blade of his hatchet dripping gore on the snow, creating a grotesque Jackson Pollock painting. Fear flowed through him. He didn't know how long it had been since he hadn't been afraid. Even when he had been deployed overseas, he had never known this never-ending fear.
Ahead of him, he heard Allen yell, "Down!" and without thinking, he dove into the snow. He heard the boom of the shotgun, and then he surfaced from the snow like a drowning man, his eyes wide, his hatchet held out before him like a talisman, like a vampire hunter holding back a vampire with a crucifix. But nothing had changed in his one-second dunk into the snow. The world was still blindingly white. Everyone still advanced in a semi-circle, though they were more cautious now that they had almost been taken out by friendly fire.
Fear coursed through his veins again. He had a headache. In fact, he'd had one since they left the safety of the Nike campus. He had been overdosing on his body's supply of cortisol for the past couple of days. He felt nauseous and shaky. When they had spent
