RU in? - 1st novel in the Ruinsaga series

Chapter 22 .

Lily

"What do we do?" I asked as the two zombies ran towards the open store door and a third zombie appeared on the street.

Hunter grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the back of the store. We went back into the dark hallway that would lead to the door to the back. Hunter closed the inner door behind us. We went a little down the hallway, but we didn't go all the way out. There was pounding on the door Hunter had just closed and several moans. We heard the front store door bang open a few more times and more moans and pounding sounded at the door.

"We can't leave Darren," I whispered still aware that Hunter held my hand.

"What do we do?" he whispered back genuinely wanting to know. "If we go out back and circle around, the zombies will see us and charge us once we get to the front."

I nodded even though he wouldn't be able to see me in the dark.

"Okay," I whispered. "You brace the door and we'll open it just enough that I can put my ax in zombie heads."

"That's risky," he whispered.

"It worked for us before," I whispered back.

"Doesn't mean it wasn't risky. I guess everything is risky though in a world full of zombies. Okay. We'll try it, but at the first sign of trouble you run out the back door."

"And you too," I said because I didn't like the way he worded that.

"Me too," he agreed.

We went back to the door as quietly as we could. There was less pounding on the door and the moans had quieted. Hunter opened it just a crack.

There was a zombie right there. His eyes had dulled and were centered on the floor, but as soon as he saw me, he pushed against the door, squeezing his hands through the crack and groaning loudly. There was shuffling and movement behind him as the other zombies in the room came back to the door.

I brought my ax up and then down hard in between his eyes. I used all my strength to pull it out. The zombie fell dead at my feet. Another one immediately took its place. Several hands reached inside now and Hunter's face strained in the faint light as he held the door in place with all his strength.

I killed this second zombie and a third took her place. Except there was an additional higher pitched moan coming from almost waist level. I had forgotten about the zombie child. I shifted so my backpack fell forward slightly to the front at waist level just as the child tried to bite me. She got my backpack instead. She bit into it over and over trying to find flesh not understanding that it wasn't me. I killed the third zombie bringing the ax down on top of his head with one hand as the other steadied the backpack.

A teenage zombie came to take that one's place. The child zombie pulled on the backpack and in the process threw me off balance. I stumbled forward toward the teenage zombie's reaching bloody fingers. He grabbed my shoulders and started pulling me closer.

I looked down just to make sure the child zombie hadn't made it passed my backpack. The last thing I needed was for her to bite my stomach while I was fighting off the teenage zombie. But as soon as I looked down I saw her attention was no longer on me or my backpack. She had seen Hunter.

"Hunt," I warned, but couldn't get out more than that as the teenage zombie with incredible strength pulled me towards his chomping mouth.

Without the child holding my backpack, I was able to raise the ax over my head with both hands and bring it down into the teenage zombie's head right as his teeth bit the sleeve of my jacket. He slid down on top of the other dead zombies as I retracted my ax. There were bite marks on my jacket, but he hadn't managed to tear it.