Page 13 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
I don’t like having my back to the door, but I put Otto’s pack by the window as he climbs into the frame. The chest of drawers shakes. It’s heavy, made of oak, maybe, but the horde is hungry. I can hear that.
“I’m up,” Otto shouts, and I grab his pack first, leaning out of the window to pass it up.
His is cumbersome, his war hammer attached to it, but the others have smaller weapons, have kept them on them, so it gets easier. I pass Otto my pack too, then my bat, heart thumping at the sounds behind me. My arms ache. I’m going to make it. I’m not dying in this strange town in the middle of nowhere.
As I climb into the frame, definitelynotlooking back and down to see how far I am from the ground, the chest of drawers tips forward and the door pushes open.
I see them.
And what I see…
It’simpossible.
These zombies are whole. They look like bodies that have only been dead for hours, never mind the months or years everything around here must have been destroyed.
We’ve seen nothing to suggest there was a group of people hiding nearby, who were slaughtered recently.
But I stare at milky-eyed, entirely whole zombies and know that I’m right.
“Isaac!” Rae screams. I pull myself up, Otto clutching at my arms, just as a zombie lurches over to the window. It roars out its frustration, almost tipping out of the frame in its haste to get to me.
Dane drags me further up the roof. I rest on my back, clinging to the tiles, breathing hard.
“Fuck,” Otto mutters. “I thought you—”
Dane shakes his head. “What were you doing?”
“I—” I don’t know how to explain what I saw. He’ll see soon enough. Zombies might prefer the dark, but this is a hungry horde and already a strange one.
Otto passes me my pack, and I shrug it on, shifting so I’m sitting at the top of the roof like the rest of them. The zombies groan and roar and thrash below us. I fancy I can see some out in the shadows, but they—
They’re different. I squint at the darkness. Some are like what I saw inside, freshly dead. I see bloated stomachs, skin peeling and sliding from rotting muscle.
I see skeletons. My hands tremble.
And among them all… There and gone, and I can’t be certain of anything I’m seeing because it’s too dark, and fuck, I’m terrified, but I see—
I seehim.
I see the same man I saw earlier today. The man who was watching us when we arrived. Who ran to the church. And he stares right back at me, and when he sees me looking, he tilts his head to one side and…
Hesmiles.
“What do we do now?” Autumn asks, voice thick like she’s holding back tears.
I jerk, my attention moving to her, and when I look back, the man is gone.
“Wait,” Blake says. For once, he doesn’t sound cruel. Hollow. Who among us has ever experienced anything like this before?
Autumn lets out a little sob. I pull my bat out of the side of my pack and rest it over my knees. Realistically, I know the zombies can’t get up here.
I know dead bodies don’t burst out of graves, either. I know towns don’t feel the way this one does.
Something moves, and I look down, inhaling a sharp breath.
Iknowthey can’t get up here. I know I can’t be seeing a half-rotted hand digging into the tiles, hauling an emaciated frame up onto the roof.
“Oh, fuck!” Blake shouts.
