The ground angled down toward a gully. Pine needles turned to slick mud and gravel. My boots slid; Eli's bare feet skittered and slapped. Behind us, the first infected dropped off the hood and landed with a sound too soft for something that heavy. It moved fast—faster than it had any right to—hands windmilling as it chased us, it's food.
I turned and slashed when it lunged. The knife punched into its mouth. Teeth scraped my knuckles, slick and hot. I shoved until metal rang bone and jerked free. The thing folded into a deadfall of limbs and kept twitching like a dying insect on its back.
"Keep going," I breathed, and Eli did, breath already wheezing, shoulders heaving.
The gully dropped to a narrow ribbon of water reflecting the moon lije glass. A deer trail cut along the lip—narrow, half-collapsed, deadly if you trusted it. I took it anyway.
More of them came from the trees. One wore half a uniform. One had a wedding band greened with rot. Some tripped over each other and got up. Some didn't. All of them wanted us.
"Left," I said. Eli skated left. A hand snatched at the back of his shirt and scraped cloth but missed skin. I turned and took the hand at the wrist. The blade bit. The wrist stayed with me. The rest of the body rolled into the ditch like a wet sack.
"Don't look," I told him.
"I'm not," he lied.
We hit a fallen pine thickr. My knees screamed. Eli stumbled and recovered, palms leaving wet streaks on the bark. I heard the first one behind us hit the log chest-first, flop over it like a drunk seal, then find its feet with a hideous rubbery insistence.
We were not outrunning them forever. We needed height. Or help. Or a miracle with a trigger.
"Up," I said, and pointed to a ledge where the trail widened into a shelf of rock. We scrambled for it. The soles of my boots found purchase that wasn't really there. Eli's branch clacked against stone. I shoved him by the butt with my free hand and hauled myself after him.
The shelf gave us two breaths and a view: the wrecked truck a smear of metal and shadow; the spike strip gleaming like a smile; the man who waved us down standing in the road again, arms out like a preacher ready to bless the congregation he'd served up.
He raised two fingers and whistled sharp. The infected turned their ruined faces toward the sound as one and came for us, a loose, slapping stampede.
I put my back to the rock and raised the knife. Eli lifted his branch like a spear. He was shaking so hard the tip bobbed.
"On my count," I said, and made my voice the calm I didn't feel. "Aim for the face. Eyes if you can. If I drop my knife, you run and don't stop. Do you understand me?"
His throat worked. "Yes."
We waited.
They came.
The first one threw itself up the ledge with a grunt and I buried the knife to the hilt through the soft part above the nose. The second climbed over its back, and I kicked it in the mouth so hard my ankle vibrated. Teeth rattled on stone like spilled rice. The third was fast—too fast—and it got close enough that I felt the heat of its hunger on my cheek. I met it with steel, then boot.
A fourth scrambled and found Eli. He swung. The branch cracked against cheekbone. It screamed, grabbed for him, and I opened its throat sideways so the scream bubbled and went quiet.
They kept coming.
My arms felt like wet rope. My breath sawed.
Don't stop.
I didn't.
Something moved on the ridge above the road—dark shape, darker coat, a silhouette with a long, somehow familiar and hopefully that help had arrived.
I didn't dare look again. I slashed and kicked and shoved, felt Eli at my hip like a second pulse.
The infected surged, filling the shelf with bodies that slid and thrashed and climbed over their own to reach us. One lunged and grabbed my forearm, nails biting deep. I drove the knife into its temple and wrenched free, skin tearing.
"Lily!" Eli cried. His voice broke.
I set my feet. The next one hauled itself up and opened its mouth for me—
—and then the world cracked.
A single gunshot tore the air in half.
The climbing thing's skull exploded backward in a wet blossom. The body dropped, knees knocking stone, and rolled. Another shot snapped, precise and close together, and a second head vanished in a red mist.
A third. A fourth.
I didn't turn. The infected did—jerking at each impact, peeling away from us toward the ridge, swarming stupidly at a new noise. The ledge thinned of bodies like a tide pulling back.
Eli pressed against me, shaking.
"Move!" a voice roared from the trees above the road, hoarse, furious, and alive. "Move your asses if you want to live, goddammit!"
I met Eli's eyes. And can you believe we hesitated like we had options?
"Go," I said.
And we ran.