When the weird, tall stretchy zombies started coming toward her, Karmen had a brief moment where all she wanted to do was give in.
How would it feel to just let them bite her? How long would it take before the virus worked in her system, turning her into one of those things? It would be so much easier to just let this be the end of it.
But then she thought about how ugly and gross they were with their grey skin and sores oozing pus. Uck. She could not let herself go out like that. Even if there was almost no one left in the world to see it. She would know.
She pulled out the shotgun Noah had given her, but it was so heavy, she had a hard time aiming it. There was no way she was going to be able to hold it up straight enough to shoot that thing in the head. Her only other weapon was a golf club. That might have worked on the regular rotters, but these things? She seriously doubted it.
She basically had two options.
Let it eat her.
Or run.
She dropped the gun to the floor and grabbed the golf club just in case. Then she ran. The office was a morbid obstacle course now of bodies and flipped over desks, papers and overturned chairs. She used the golf club like a vaulting stick, jumping over the debris and navigating her way through the mess. She had managed to get pretty far out ahead of it.
But then there was another one. She glanced behind her, thinking maybe she'd gotten turned around, but no, there were two of these things. Almost like twins.
They converged on her and she screamed.
Anger raced through her veins. She'd gone through the trouble of deciding she wanted to live and now they were going to kill her anyway. This sucked.
She wasn't going to go down without a fight.
She kind of wished she'd brought the gun with her now, but it was way too late for that. She held her golf club tight in her hands and turned in circles, watching as the two tall rotters stepped into her space.
The smell of them was overpowering. Like rotten flesh on crack. Bile stung the back of her throat, but she swallowed it down. She had to think of something or she was going to get eaten by these things.
Then she remembered Noah's dad and her skin began to tingle.
At the time, she'd thought it was some kind of stress reaction to believe that she'd actually been talking to a zombie with the power of her own mind. People had said a lot of things about her in her short sixteen years on this earth, but no one had ever said she had a strong mind.
Still, she had talked to it. Almost commanded it.
And it had listened.
As the taller ones reached her, she knew it was her only hope. Her only chance. She stilled her mind and closed her eyes, not wanting to see if their teeth ripped into her flesh anyway.
She focused on them, sending her thoughts to them.
Stop.
She practically shouted it in her head, putting all the force of her belief behind it.
When she didn't feel her skin being torn from her body, she opened her eyes just a little and peeked out the one on her right. His face had gone slack and his eyes dimmed. They were still red, but less glowy.
She snapped her eyes shut and took in a calming breath.
You will not move. You will not touch me.
She opened her eyes again and took a better look. Both of the tall zombies were standing there, their arms limp at their sides and their eyes staring straight ahead.
Some kind of white-hot energy hummed inside her skin. She felt connected to them, as if there were an invisible rope of energy tying them to her thoughts. As long as she didn't break that line, she could control them.
A gunshot off toward the back pulled her attention and she turned without thinking.
One of the taller zombies moaned and lifted his hand toward her.
Oh crap.
Karmen climbed onto a large desk in front of her and turned back toward the two zombies. She couldn't let anything destroy her focus or she was gone.
She concentrated again, centering herself as much as she could. She focused on that bright light within, her skin growing so warm, sweat trickled down between her shoulder-blades. She commanded them to stop. To wait. To be still.
And they were.
So excited we are getting close to the end now. Thank you for hanging out with me here and reading through Death's Awakening!