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“Sensei,” said Lou. “Maybe we could throw Rosa up onto the top of the wall, so she could open the gate.”

Sensei drew his sword. “It’ll be padlocked, remember? And I don’t think she’d make it over the razor wire.”

Another wave walked out of the corn.

Sensei pointed back along the wall, in the other direction, through the soybeans. “At a jog, Lou, lead. Look ahead. Keep your eyes open. We’ll watch behind.”

“Now, Sensei?”

“Five minutes ago.”

I left my sword undrawn and hung back with Sensei, letting Richard keep pace behind Lou. There was a recently infected, vigorous zombie further back in the cornfield and it got up a serious head of steam before it burst out of the stalks. It was across the road in seconds and ten more seconds saw it out in front of the others.

I breathed out. It wasn’t Diego.

“Sensei?” I said.

“I see it. I’ll make the first cut, you finish it.” He kept jogging but slowed slightly, drifting further back.

The zombie sped up and, just when I thought it would leap on Sensei’s back, he sidestepped and turned, so fast, the sword coming across waist high, cutting deep across the zombies abdomen. It folded over, but didn’t fall, staggering.

I pivoted and took the head.

The zombie dropped. We kept moving.

It’s three miles to the town’s west gate but there’s a deep culvert where the outflow from the city’s water treatment plant flows through a grate under the wall on its way to the river. If we went far enough away from the wall it became more shallow, but that was in the woods.

“Sensei?” Lou asked.

Sensei and I caught up to Richard and Lou, and looked down. It was steep, fifteen feet down, then back up the same on the other side. Also, there was a trio of zombies crouched in the shallow stream.

“Follow,” Sensei said, and dropped over the edge with his sword drawn.

The zombie Sensei landed on didn’t stand a chance. Neither did the one he cut as he dropped, but Sensei fell backwards into the stream, after landing, and the other zombie leaped at him.

Richard jumped. He missed with his feet but he fell over and knocked the zombie sideways, away from Sensei. He swore sharply. Sensei got up and cut the zombie down.

I looked behind. The crowd was fifty yards behind and coming steadily, some of them almost jogging if you could call a quick, step-drag, a jog.

“Go,” I told Lou. “Carefully, though. I think Richard’s broken his foot.”

She slid down the steep side in a shower of rocks and dirt, pulled Richard to his feet, and began climbing up the other side, supporting Richard. I waited until Sensei had joined them, supporting Richard from the other side, then slid down myself.

I wanted to reach the far side before them. If anything came out of the woods, they’d be handicapped as they came over the edge. I ran ten feet down the gully and scrambled up to where I could grab a root sticking out of the bank. With it, I reached the top in time to see two zombies come out of the woods. Very old zombies, probably early infected. They hardly looked human. All their clothes had rotted off and with it lots of skin. I couldn’t even tell what sex they’d been, but thank goodness they were slow ones. I had time to pull Richard over the lip before they were even close.

The one in front reached out its left arm and I just cut it off above the elbow. It staggered in the other direction, suddenly heavier on its right side. It would probably have recovered its balance in another step but the gully was right there and it went over the edge. I split the other one down through the sinuses and turned back before it fell. On the other side of the gully the first of our pursuers had jumped down into the gully and was starting to claw its way up our side.

Sensei tilted his neck side to side, stretching. His voice was calm and low. “Lou, check his leg. If it’s a sprain, bind it. Rosa, you’re with me, on the edge.”

It was a good place to make a stand. They were clumsy and, even unopposed, it took them several tries to get up the bank to the rim. Mostly we just split their heads open, letting them dislodge others as they fell.

The problem was they were still coming. I didn’t really see an end to them, and some of them were being driven down the gully into the woods where I knew they’d be able to climb out easily.

We’d put twenty or so down for good when Lou said, “Bad sprain, I think. I duct taped it.”

“Then we should go,” said Sensei. “Start off. We’ll follow.”

We killed fifteen more.

Richard was moving okay, limping heavily, but he and Lou were working well as a team with Lou taking the legs and Richard finishing them. We went through a field of sugar beets, moving down the rows parallel to the wall.

“Go for the gate,” someone said, loudly.

I looked up. One of the guards-not Danny-was watching us from the wall but he kept his gun slung, thankfully.

“I’ll be waiting!” He headed down the parapet at a slow jog, light-footed. He’d still get there well ahead of us.

The next field was hay, cut short and harvested recently, for it felt like a stubbly lawn. Without Richard’s sprain, we could’ve sprinted across it, but at least we could see everything come at us.

I was expecting to see more ahead of us, for the wall and the gates draw them, but instead I started seeing bodies. Bodies in pieces.

“Sensei, Diego’s been here.”

There were sharp cuts, heads, arms, legs. Not a few were cleaved entirely through the chest from the shoulder down through the ribs.

He nodded and frowned. One of the bodies had not been infected for it had also been eaten. The infected don’t eat other infected, not after the first day or two. Something about the taste. But this body had been sliced first, several times. Including the neck.

“Sensei?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe the zombies had already killed or mortally wounded him, er, her, and Diego put her out of her misery.”

I was looking at the blood spray. “Definitely alive during the first cut.”

We pushed through to the apple orchard beyond the hay. The field hands had done a good job of keeping the underbrush down, but the trees were unpruned and many of the branches dipped down close to the ground, heavy with unripe fruit, obscuring the sight lines.

The crowd of zombies on our tail hadn’t entered the hayfield and it was clear that they were beginning to tail off as the ones in the rear got distracted and wandered away.

We moved carefully into the orchard, looking in all directions. The orchard predated the wall and the rows ran at an angle, making it hard to see too far ahead. We rounded one low-branched tree and saw him, two rows over.

Diego was sitting on a pile of bodies, his arms resting on his thighs, his head hanging. The sun was behind him, casting his figure in silhouette, but he was instantly recognizable by his size, posture, and especially his hair, which he wore in a top knot, like the samurai chonmage style.

Lou’s hand went to her mouth and froze but Richard saw him and cried out, “Diego!”

He turned then, and the light fell across his front.

In one hand he held his sword, in the other he held an arm. Someone else’s arm. His chin was covered with blood as was his shirt front.

“Oh, no.” Lou fell to her knees. One hand went to her stomach and the other covered her mouth.

“Rosa, take them around.” Sensei gestured at the side of the orchard closest to the wall. “Keep them moving to the gate.” He didn’t look at us as he said this. Instead, he walked forward, his hands resting on the scabbard and handle of his sword.

“Sensei, shouldn’t we take him together? He’s still holding his sword!”

As I said, the recently infected retained their physical skills and Diego had been studying with Sensei for twenty-five years. His physical skills were considerable.

“Could you cut him, Rosa? I’m not sure I can, but I must. Get Lou and Richard to the gate. My will is in the Kamiza at the dojo. I haven’t changed it but you are listed as my preferred successor, after Diego.” He finally looked around at me. The corners of his mouth were drawn down hard, but they twitched up briefly in an almost smile, and then he winked at me.