40

Remy

"Nova, hurry up!" I shouted.

"I'm almost done," Nova grunted behind me. "Frost and Sable will keep us safe."

The strange zombie child stood in front of me, watching me with eyes that seemed to actually see me. Zombies usually looked straight through the person they were chasing.

"Get back!" I shouted at the child. In one hand, I had a machete, and when I swung my torch out at him, he flinched.

He flinched .

I had never seen a zombie react to fire with fear, even when they were literally on fire themselves.

From behind him, more zombies came out of the dark, walking toward us in the falling snow. Nova was right that the wolves were on them in a flash, but there were so many zombies, more than two canines could handle, no matter how fierce they might be. The zombies trudged through the snow, and they all seemed to be older, decaying, and rotten with so little flesh and meat on their bones.

Nova and I had time to outrun them, even if she was dragging the bear hide behind her. But to where? In the thundering snowstorm, we could only safely head back to the shelter we'd made, where Eden and the mule were waiting. What good would it do to bring the zombies back to surround the shelter and devour them too?

"Nova, we've got to stay here and fight, and you've gotta get ready right now."

I had a machete in my right hand, and the torch in my left. I charged at the zombies who made it past the wolves' frenzied attacks, and I sliced their head right off with the blade, easily cutting through their gelatinous bones like butter.

The next zombie who came at me I lit on fire because I wanted more light, and the old, ragged cloth and dried flesh burned like tinder. The quickly falling snowflakes hissed as they melted in the flames.

On the other side of the wolves, Nova was taking down zombies that came at her, using her knife to run them through their brittle bones.

Suddenly, the child zombie who had been standing motionless since after he'd flinched away, let out a howling scream, like how I imagined a demonic fox might cry out if its foot was caught in a trap.

But this was so loud and went on for so long, I couldn't help but put my hands over my ears. Even the wolves whimpered and backed off in complaint. When I looked over at the zombie child, he had his hand out in front of him in a stop motion.

All at once, the zombies began to fall back. They turned away, walking into the darkness behind the zombie child, and only once they were all gone did the child turn to follow them. I raised my blade, starting after him, and Nova grabbed my arm and stopped me.

"He's retreating. Let him go," Nova insisted.

"He can control other zombies!" I argued in disbelief.

"Yes, and he led them away," she said.

"Only because he realized they were losing! He let them attack until after we'd started taking them down," I said .

Her expression changed, and she looked back into the night where he had disappeared. "You're right. He realized something." She turned back to me. "He was a zombie, and he could think and plan. He was a child, and you want to strike him down?"

"What would you prefer? That he and his friends all hunt us down instead?" I shot back. "Should he use our flesh to fuel his burgeoning intelligence?"

Her eyes turned hard. "Fuck off, Remy." She went back to grab the bear hide. "They're gone now, and we should get back to the shelter."

I helped her carry the hide back so we wouldn't leave a trail of blood behind us for the zombies or other predators to follow. The wolves jogged ahead of us, leading the way back to the shelter.

Once we reached it, I left Nova to deal with spreading the hide out on the roof, blocking out the snow and wind. I clean my hands in the snow. It melted against my warmer skin and washed away the zombie and bear blood, and then I went into the shelter to warm by the fire.

"How did it go?" Eden asked, sitting cross-legged on her bedroll.

"Nova killed a bear, we killed some zombies, and a zombie child flinched at fire before commanding his brethren to retreat," I explained succinctly.

" What ? One zombie could command others? And then they retreated?" Eden asked.

"Seems like it, anyway," I said.

"Well, everything just got a lot more complicated, didn't it?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I think it did."