Page 10 of When the Living Fall

The rotter falls still, but I keep stabbing it repeatedly, twisting and turning the knife to scramble its brains. When my scream finally dies down, I wait a couple of beats. My breath comes in sharp, heavy gasps, my chest heaving when I yank the knife from its head. I push the body aside and it plops into the mud. Rain is falling harder now, the thick drops pelting my face as I stare up at the patches of sky between the leaves, and swallow down a cry.

After pushing myself upright, I crawl away from the dead rotter until I can retrieve my fallen belongings. That tumble scattered all the contents of the bag across the ground. With the rain morphing into a pour, the dirt is transforming into mud, dirtying everything up. I normally wouldn’t care about that, but it even got inside open packages of food, diminishing our already low supply and rendering it inedible.

Low moans echo from nearby. I scramble to my feet, slipping in the mud. “Come on, Buddy. We can’t stay here.”

Buddy wins his fight with the rotter and darts to my side, his paws kicking up sloshes of mud when we take off.

The rain thickens, transforming the dirt into a sludgy mess that clings to my shoes, sucking at them with every step. It becomes a fight to keep my shoes on. Buddy,however, doesn’t seem to mind. His tongue lolls out of the side of his mouth while he dashes through the rain. He leaps through puddles, splashing water everywhere, and even jumps in one, sending droplets flying around us. For a moment, all my worries melt away when I watch him. I can’t help but laugh at his antics. Every person should have a canine sidekick in the apocalypse.

The playfulness evaporates when a rotter stumbles toward us, and we resume our running again.

The ground pulls at my feet; the mud gripping harder with every step, until I find myself trapped. My left shoe sticks, the mud swallowing it whole, refusing to let go no matter what I do. I tug as hard as I can until my foot slips free with a sticky pop, but my shoe remains buried in the muck. My balance falters, and I reach out, gripping the nearest tree trunk to steady myself. I reach out to dig through the mud for my shoe when I notice at least four rotters closing in fast, their faces twisted with vacant hunger.

I can’t keep doing this. My body grows more exhausted with each passing hour, and it’s been a long night of nonstop running and fighting for our lives. So, as my last resort, I pull the gun from its holster and fire away until each of the rotters falls in a dead heap on the ground.

“Let’s go, Buddy,” I say, my voice barely audible over the rain. “Those shots are likely to draw in more, and we don’t want to be here when they arrive.”

Buddy lets out a soft whine, his ears pricked, as if he understands. I don’t bother trying to get my shoe. There’s no time. I’ll have to find another somewhere.

Turning back in the direction we were headed, I reach for my compass to confirm. My hand grasps mud-covered bare skin beneath my shirt, and I gasp, spinning around.

My compass. It’s gone.

“No. No, no, no. Not again.” It’s nowhere to be foundhere, so it must have fallen free when I fought with the rotter in the mud.

More moans reach us. There’s no time to go back. There’s no way I’ll be able to find it now, even if we did.

I fight back the sob that threatens to erupt when I think about how William sacrificed himself to get my compass back for me. Would he have done that if he knew then what he knows now?

8

WILLIAM

Blood seeps into the fabric of my shoes, warm and sticky against my soles, but I don’t care enough to notice. My gaze locks on the lifeless figures sprawled at Max’s feet.

“Did you really have to do that?” Griffin asks, shaking his head with disbelief.

Max secures the morning star onto his back, turning to face Griffin, his eyes cold and steady, the bodies of the man and woman now lifeless. “Yeah. He wanted to turn, so he stuck his hand right into her mouth to make it happen. Said he wanted to be with her. Well, he got his wish—maybe not the way he imagined, but it’s one less rotter to deal with. The rest of humanity can thank me later. Now some poor souls in the future won’t have to face a gruesome death if I had let them go. Imagine how fewer rotters would be in the world if more people were as gracious as I.”

Their conversation is useless to me. The only thing that matters is what the old man said. Instead, they’re wasting time. Well, not me.

“Emily, that’s Emily.” I shove Griffin aside and run out ofthe room. When I realize they’re not following me, I bark at them over my shoulder. “We’ve already wasted enough time. We know we’re on the right track. Now let’s hurry.”

Griffin passes me up within moments. It’s unexpected, with the condition he’s in, but I’m glad to see him get some agency. We’re not going to lose her because of his fuck up.

The door creaks when we shove through it, and we hit the ground running. My legs pump, working double-time to keep up with Griffin, who’s moving with a focus that borders on manic. We were in a hurry before, but that was nothing compared to his urgency now.

“We can still catch up with her before sunrise if we hurry. The sooner we get to her, the better.” Griffin presses his hand against his side, a look of pain erupting across his face.

I quicken my pace until I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with him, both of us breathing heavy. “Grif, if we keep pushing at this pace, you’re going to collapse,” I try to reason with him. “I want to find her as much as you do, but I’d rather not have to drag your dead body to her feet. Not exactly the reunion vibe I’m aiming for.”

He huffs out a strained laugh that’s cut short by a grimace. “You need to be a more positive thinker, William. If I bust open, maybe it’ll buy us enough time to convince her to stick around and fix me up.”

“You’re seriously willing to put yourself through this and risk bleeding out?” I shake my head in frustration. “You’re insane.”

Griffin’s mouth twists into a grin. “Maybe, but I’ll take any edge I can get to make sure she doesn’t leave again.”

“Not even handcuffs worked on her,” I remind him, as the first few raindrops splatter against my cheek. They begin as a light sprinkle, then escalate into a steady downpour, the heavy drops beating against our faces and blurring our vision. I brace a hand over my eyes in order to see anything.

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