“Let’s get that son of a hound,” grumbled Bigg.
“Go for it,” agreed Pete, and they ran a zigzag across the field, smashing zoms out of the way and shoving panicked spectators into the open pits. Pete fired a Winchester rifle from the hip, and Little swung an old-fashioned cavalry saber he’d long ago scavenged from a museum. Guards and spectators fell before them. Preacher Jack’s two remaining guards rushed them. Vegas Pete missed with his last shot and broke the rifle over one guard’s head. The second guard snatched up a pitchfork and ran at Little Bigg, but Little parried the thrust and ran the man through.
That left Preacher Jack stuck in the corner with the two trade guards grinning at him.
“Now ain’t this a pickle?” asked Preacher Jack mildly. He should have been cowering. He should have been looking desperately for a way out. He was fifteen years older than these men, and where they were packed with muscle, he was a stick figure.
“Call off your goons, old man,” said Vegas Pete, “and you might walk out of this with a whole skin.”
“Well,” said Little Bigg as he pulled his saber free, “I wouldn’t say a whole skin.”
Preacher Jack’s lips twitched and writhed.
“Glad you think this is funny,” said Pete, “’cause we’re gonna-”
Preacher Jack kicked Pete under the kneecap and simultaneously chopped him across the throat with the stiffened edge of his hand. There was a sound like an eggshell cracking and Pete was backpedaling, fingers clawing at his throat as he tried to drag in air. His face turned red and then purple and he fell.
Little Bigg wasted no time gaping. He slashed a killing blow at Preacher Jack, but the old man leaped forward inside the swing. He head-butted Little, punched him in the chest and bicep, and snatched the saber out of his hand. There was a flash of silver and then Little Bigg was falling, his eyes wide with total incomprehension. It was all over in three seconds.
“Amateurs,” sneered Preacher Jack. He laid the saber within easy reach on the bleachers and set to work pulling at the aluminum siding.
Chong reached the bleachers where he had seen Lilah fall. He swore to himself that he would defend her body until this was over, and then-Oh God, he thought, then what?
He would have to quiet her. But… could he do it? The thought of it made him crazier still. He slashed at the legs of a man who stood on the bleachers trying to reload a pistol. The man fell, and Chong thrust the blunt point of the sword into a guard’s groin. The guard screamed and doubled over, and Chong knocked him flying into a line of five zoms. The creatures were already covered with blood, and two of them had been spectators themselves less than three minutes ago.
Chong kept swinging and swinging. At one point he found himself fighting almost side by side with Solomon Jones. The bounty hunter had a machete in each hand, and they whirled like windmill blades. Zoms and humans fell around him like harvested wheat.
“Get to cover, kid!” yelled Solomon, but Chong ignored him, and then a surge of battle swept him and Solomon apart.
“Lilah,” Chong said, mouthing her name like a battle chant. “Lilah!”
Benny and Nix fought back-to-back, swinging their swords at legs and necks and heads. Dr. Skillz worked the other tunnel, and despite the young bounty hunter’s laid-back persona, he fought with the speed and precision of an experienced killer. He shattered bone with the reinforced butt of the spear and cut off hands and heads with the blade.
The burning zombie had crumpled to the ground, but not before two others bumped into it and caught fire. Heat and smoke were becoming a real problem.
“We have to get out of here!” Benny yelled, then broke into a fit of coughing.
“Waiting for a ride,” Dr. Skillz shouted back.
“What?”
As if in answer, a length of knotted rope flopped over the edge of the pit, and J-Dog poked his head in. “Um… dudes? Stop screwing around. It’s getting gnarly out here.” Then he was gone; a second later someone screamed, and one of White Bear’s guards dropped bonelessly into the pit.
“You climb,” Dr. Skillz yelled. “I’ll hold ’em off!”
Benny backed away from the press of zoms. There were four of them between him and Charlie. “Nix, c’mon!”
She half turned to look at the rope, but then she shook her head. With renewed fury she wheeled back and kept hammering at the zoms.
“What are you doing?” Benny demanded, but then he understood. He had been defending himself against the zoms, but Nix had been attacking them, chopping at them to fight her way toward Charlie. “God! Nix-don’t!”
Nix rammed a zom in the throat and knocked it down with a foot-sweep.
“Hey! Kids!” growled Dr. Skillz. “The rope… not a freakin’ request here!”
Benny took and grabbed the dangling rope, but Nix was still cutting her way toward Charlie. Four zoms stood in her way now, and Charlie was clawing at them to get to her.
“I’m going to regret this,” muttered Benny, and he flung the rope toward Dr. Skillz.
“What the hell?” the bounty hunter demanded, but then two zoms rushed him and he had no time for anything except fighting.
Benny jumped over a fallen zom to where Nix fought. As she cut down another zombie, one of them lunged for her blind side. Benny swung his bokken like a baseball bat inches above Nix’s head and hit the zom across the face. The blow snapped its head back, and the creature fell against Charlie with such force that its head and back struck the vest of nails and drove Charlie back a full step.
Nix finished another zom with the same ruthless precision. Her face was flushed with exertion and panic and rage, and her freckles stood out like a brown constellation on her skin. Charlie lumbered forward, his white hands barely two yards from Nix.
The remaining zom was nearly as tall as Charlie but only half as wide. He had a face like a quiet schoolteacher, but when he snarled, his jagged yellow teeth said all that needed to be said about the dreadful gulf between what he had been in life and what he had become in death.
Benny mouthed the word “Sorry” as he swung his sword. The blade hit the man on the crown of the head, and the zom instantly collapsed to its knees. Benny raised his arms to swing again, but the zom fell limply against him, and they both toppled back.
In the few seconds before Benny could crawl out from beneath the corpse, he witnessed something that was as awe-inspiring and magnificent as it was heartbreaking and terrifying. Nix Riley stood in front of Charlie Pink-eye. He was six and a half feet tall; she was barely five feet. He weighed three hundred pounds; she was less than a third of that. He was covered in spikes and armor, and he wore an invulnerability to pain that was a dark gift of the zombie plague; Nix wore a vest and shirt and jeans and did not even have a carpet coat to protect her.
Benny struggled against the zom’s limp body, but his own leg was folded under him, and there were bodies heaped everywhere. “NIX!” he screamed.
Nix Riley looked at him for a brief second. The crazy look burned in her eyes and a weird, terrible smile played on her lips. Then she turned back just as Charlie reached for her.
It was all over so fast…
Her bokken snapped out and slammed Charlie’s hands aside. Finger bones cracked and twisted out of joint. Without pausing, Nix shifted and swung the sword around and down and cracked it across Charlie’s left knee, and the impact knocked sweat from her face and arms. Plaster powder erupted from her pockets and filled the corridor with a pall like a graveyard mist. Charlie charged toward her, but his knee buckled and his leg crumpled sideways and crashed down onto the shattered knee. Nix’s sword swept through the cloud of powder, a ghostly image that was strangely beautiful. The tapered hardwood blade caught Charlie across the side of the mouth so hard that broken fragments of teeth struck the wall and stuck there, buried to half their length. Nix reversed her angle and struck the other side of Charlie’s mouth, destroying his jaw and shattering the last of his razor-toothed grin.