Sorrow's Gift

Chapter Three: Parrish

Noah moved forward to help open the back door of the Humvee. The entire inside of the vehicle had been customized and hollowed out to make room for two benches, one along each side, and a large door in the back. Karmen rushed forward, ready to shut the door quickly, but the new girl did nothing. She barely even looked up. Her hands were trembling.

Was she in shock? How had she survived all on her own?

Parrish shook her head and jumped forward, landing firmly on the pavement in front of Crash's apartment building. There was no time to think or plan. There was only action.

She and Noah raced around the left side of the truck. Most of the zombies had moved toward the front of the vehicle where the lights were shining. A few others stood alone in the darkness, stumbling toward the Humvee.

She only had a breath's worth of time to send up a prayer before she lifted her sword. The blade hit flesh and she winced as the sharpened sword sliced through the neck of a man in a brown suit.

Or what used to be a man in a brown suit.

His skin had begun to decay around his eyes and mouth, and there was a chunk of flesh missing from his cheek.

The man's head fell to the ground with a bloody thud.

Noah moved ahead. He lifted his baseball bat and swung forward with enormous speed. The sound of wood meeting soft flesh rose over the sound of the truck's engine as the zombie's head caved in. Blood splattered out, some hitting the side of the dark green military vehicle.

There was no time to think about what they were doing or who these people used to be. There was only time to kill. To do their best to survive.

The two of them moved forward, picking off a handful of zombies that stumbled around the Humvee.

They killed as quietly as they could, trying not to draw the attention of the larger group of rotters until they moved up near the front where they could be seen in the dim headlights.

She wasn't sure if they saw her or smelled her, but the undead clustered in the headlights snapped their heads in her direction.

Parrish didn't hesitate. She swung her sword with a skill she still had no idea how she'd learned. Or when. She gave into that deep instinct and sliced into the first of the rotters—a woman with dirty blonde hair and bulging blue eyes. Her head landed at Parrish's feet with a thump. Parrish kicked it aside and turned, gathering momentum and strength as she buried her sword into the neck of a large fat man.

A bloodied hand grabbed her shoulder and tried to scratch at her, but she flipped around just in time, first kicking the dead woman away and then bringing her blade down hard on the woman's skull, splitting it in two.

Parrish gagged at the dark blood that spilled down the woman's face as she fell forward.

There was a part of her that just wanted to sit down and cry. To try to make sense of all this chaos. She needed peace and quiet and time to figure out how the world had turned into this horror show. But there were others clawing at her clothes, trying to grab her and drag her down.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Noah's bat slam into another of the zombies, crushing its skull like a rotten pumpkin.

If he can do this, so can I.

She drew in a deep breath, ignoring the putrid smell of decaying flesh, and forced herself to keep moving. She sliced and kicked and killed until a pile of bodies lay in a circle around her. She turned and looked for Noah.

He was on the other side of the truck, fighting off a group of four or five.

She scrambled over the bodies of the dead and ran through the headlights toward him.

She drew in a breath and cursed. A huge crowd of rotters was making their way over from one of the side streets. There were too many of them. A lot more than four or five. There had to be dozens more. Hundreds, maybe. There was no way to kill them fast enough.

She glanced at the Humvee. Should they give up and just go back inside and wait this out? It looked sturdy, but would they survive until morning?

Parrish sheathed her sword and lifted her pistol into the air. Maybe she could kill them faster with a gun than with a sword. She took aim on one of the zombies in the middle of the crowd and squeezed the trigger.

She missed and bit her lip. Her hands were trembling.

Her plan backfired. The gunshot rang out through the empty streets, drawing the attention of the two dozen or so zombies all headed toward the truck. They moved faster, hungry for food.

Noah set his bat on the hood of the Humvee and took out his rifle. He aimed into the crowd and blew the head off the zombie she'd been trying to hit.

"Nice shot," she said, impressed with his aim and steady hand. "But I think we made them mad."

Noah flashed a brief smile and turned toward the group of rotters as they lumbered forward.

Parrish backed up, making sure none of them had moved up behind her. Together, she and Noah slowly drew the crowd away from the truck, picking off one at a time with their guns.

Parrish only hit her mark one out of three or four shots, but Noah was amazing. He never missed. Not once.

She would have told him how impressed she was except for the fact that they had more than twenty zombies heading straight for them.

Crash appeared through the roof of the Humvee and took a few shots with the machine gun he'd mounted to the top. He sprayed the crowd and more than six of the rotters fell to the ground.

Parrish cheered, but then realized that the rest of those still standing were now heading straight for the truck.

"Stop shooting. You're drawing them back to you," Parrish called out to him. "I'll distract them, just get that gate open as fast as you can."

Parrish looked around for anything that might make some noise and get the attention of the zombies heading for the truck.

Just a few feet away, a small red Ford two-door had been driven onto the sidewalk and abandoned, its door still open. She put her pistol back in its holster and grabbed her sword again. She ran up beside the small car.

This was probably the dumbest idea she'd ever had, but if they didn't do something drastic and create a brief window to get that garage gate open, they might all die out here tonight.

"What are you doing?" Noah shouted, taking a few shots and downing two or three rotters at the front of the crowd.

She reached inside and slammed her hand down on the horn, one long bleating cry into the night. The sound echoed against the tall buildings and every rotter in the area growled and changed direction.