pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 2

CHAPTER 2

There was no timepiece on earth fine enough in its workings to measure how long Elizabeth stood by motionless, in shock, as a zombie chomped into her husband. One tick of a clock would have been an eternity by comparison. Yet Elizabeth judged herself unimaginably, unforgivably slow to act.

She grabbed the little dreadful by its lacy collar and jerked it away. The ghoul-child stumbled back still chewing furiously on a stringy chunk of flesh torn from Darcy's neck. It showed no emotion as the rest of its supper stumbled off a few steps, hands clasped uselessly over a gushing wound. It merely swallowed and stepped forward again, ready for another bite.

Elizabeth swiveled and aimed a kick at its head that could have split a boulder. But Andrew Brayles had been young—just six years old. He'd been nimble in life, and he was new to death. No sleepy-slow half-hibernating dreadful was this. His reflexes were fast, his muscles strong.

"YOUNG MASTER BRAYLES ANSWERED WITH A GROWL."

The zombie dodged under the kick and headed directly for Darcy.

"Elizabeth ... I ...," Darcy gasped, and fell to his knees with his fingers still pressed to his throat. His white cravat and shirt-front were dyed red. His face was ashy gray.

The unmentionable reached him and bent in toward Darcy's neck, irresistibly drawn to the enticing sight of so much flowing blood. Before it could taste any again, however, its feet were pulled out from under it, and the zombie found itself swinging through the air. It screeched and flailed, but to no avail.

Elizabeth had hold of the creature by the ankles and was spinning away from her husband like a Scots highlander about to hurl a hammer. She didn't let go until after the dreadful's head had whirled into—and was completely splattered upon—a particularly sturdy tree on the opposite side of the road.

Elizabeth sent the rest of Andrew Brayles's lifeless body twirling into the forest. Then she turned back to Darcy, experiencing a sensation that had been unknown to her for many a year: fear.

She'd faced legions of reanimated cadavers without flinching. She hadn't batted an eye while dueling her Shaolin masters on tightropes stretched over poison-tipped punji sticks. She'd killed a dreadful with a pebble, a pair of ninjas with their own toes, and a bear with nothing but a long hard stare, all without sinking so low as to break a sweat.

Yet every time her sister had gone into labor, Elizabeth had found herself reacquainted with dread. At such times, Death wasn't something she could defeat with a well-executed Striking Viper or thrust of her katana. If it chose to take Jane, she'd be helpless—just as she would be if her husband's wound was half as bad as it looked.

By the time she reached his side, it looked even worse. Darcy was on his hands and knees, the blood that splashed onto the sloping road already starting to trickle in little rivulets down the hill. The only cause for hope (ridiculous as it was to have hope at such a moment) was that the blood was dark and came in a steady stream. It didn't squirt out in heartbeat spurts, nor was it the vivid crimson that issues from a torn artery. Darcy might yet be saved. Perhaps. For a time.

Elizabeth knelt beside him and helped him straighten—better to keep the wound elevated, above his heart. Then she lifted her skirts and tore a long strip of muslin from her petticoat.

"Keep applying pressure," she said, pushing the wadded cloth into his fingers and lifting his hands back to the side of his neck. "Don't let up, no matter what."

"Elizabeth ... you must ..."

She silenced him with a gentle kiss—for all she knew, their last.