Page 17 of Between Two Thorns

Chad landed heavily , with all his weight, on one person. A woman who was already swaying before. She looked distinctly green around the gills—maybe she had already been drinking a little too much.

Because neither she nor any of the people gathered around her had the reflexes to help her dodge the impact.

Chad’s enormous body fell on top of hers with a sickening crunch.

And a gasp silenced the onlookers.

***

“Oh my God, fuck!” Chad pushed himself up on his arms, his hands in the dirt as he lifted himself off of the crushed woman. Her hair had fallen all over her face—and to Rose, her torso looked horrifyingly flat.

Rose barely made it out of Sam’s way as he darted back to the ambulance , grabbing a reflective red bag from the step beside her, snapping at people to move with a ringing authority of the only person with the wherewithal to move.

No one around the woman did. They all seemed to be frozen, stock still, staring.

“Slowly.” Sam grabbed Chad’s shoulder, so he didn’t jerk away and cause anyone any further injury. The EMT’s eyes were on the woman’s chest and moving down to her pelvis, seeing what was broken—it looked like everything.

Rose hobbled over, clutching Del’s arm.

She could hear the woman groaning in pain, breaths just rattling out between her lips.

The tangle of brunette hair, matted with dirt, lifted a hand, her one arm shaking and twitching and trembling. It fell limp onto Chad’s shoulder.

Then, she jerked. Long enough for Rose to think that the woman was having a seizure—until she sank her pitch black teeth into Chad’s neck.

There was an impossibly long moment, somehow no longer than a heartbeat, where confusion descended like a fog over the crowd. Like a thick curtain had fallen on a stage play, and the audience was so stunned that applause never came.

No movement, no sound, not even from Chad—maybe because his windpipe was no longer—

A gurgle of blood from his lips and broke the silent spell. The woman—the thing—pulled back with the rending sound of ripping flesh. Spraying blood from his corroded artery with a sickly splash.

The surreality broke. Panic. Screaming. Trampling of feet as people ran for their lives.

The crowd split—half chaotic and running. But the others… didn’t move at all. Because the far side of the circle of bodies wasn’t people at all.

Rose Woods didn’t have to think—those were zombies.

And, once that the first one tasted flesh, they all moved like a wave. Grabbing at people, clawing at flesh, trying to sink those blackened teeth into anyone and anything.

“Sam! C’mon!” Del growled out, launching after the older man, grabbing him by his arms to yank him back.

The man had frozen when the bite had happened. Blood had spattered over him and it was like it robbed him of all motion.

Del had to move him.

Sam reanimated. His voice came back to him, and he was shouting at her to climb up before them.

Rose didn’t even know who grabbed her around the middle. But powerful arms were dragging her into the back of the ambulance.

They scrambled over the gurney as Rose tried to pull her legs out of the way and Del moved her.

She scrambled on top of a cabinet as Sam climbed into the back of the ambulance. He just got one foot up onto the back step when a snarl ripped from behind him.

A man this time, more green than flesh-colored, with veins bursting from his skin like strangling vines, had the paramedic by the pant leg.

And more were swarming to grab on.

Del scrambled, kicking up onto the gurney. “Get down!” He yelled at Sam, grabbing the fronts of the cabinets and shoving with his legs. Rose kicked out her good ankle to help him.

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