Zero

[2]

Chapter 2

I don't know if it was the loud happy singing from my family that attracted them, or just shitty luck, but our blissful moment of singing about love quickly cut off when a low, deep groan sounded from the left.

I shouldn't have let them sing so loud. I shouldn't have let my guard down. I should have been the one paying attention, the one to shut them up when they start acting their own ages.

But I didn't.

I failed my family.

Atlas takes the first one down easy, but there are at least a dozen more closing in.

"Braces," I shout to get his attention. I love Atlas, and Birdie, and Squirrel, and even Bambi, but I only trust Braces with the safety of our odd misfit little family. The biggest and strongest of the guys is by my side in seconds.

"Listen Bambi, you're going to go with Braces and he's going to keep you safe," I tell her and Braces narrows his eyes at me not liking my plan. He hates running. More specifically he hates running if it means leaving me behind.

"She can't run fast enough and I can't run with her on my back," I explain why it has to be him that leaves but he doesn't look so convinced. "Please." We need to get Bambi and Squirrel the hell out of here quickly and I need to help Atlas and Birdie.

Reluctantly, he hitches Bambi on to his back and yells for Squirrel to stay glued to his side. He glances at his watch and says to me, "You have five minutes before I come back." Braces turns and runs our two weak links to safety.

"Birdie, Atlas, how're you holding up?" I ask attempting to keep the boys in my peripheral vision while taking on a creep of my own. I hear each of them grunt out confirmation that they're doing ok. "You get overwhelmed, you run the fuck away," I shout to them as I lift my crowbar and swing into the first creep's skull.

With surprising ease, the monster falls to the ground, actually dead this time, but is quickly replaced by a new one. The skin on his face is rotting off and discolored to something less than human. His jaw his hanging at a funny, unnatural angle but still opening and closing in attempt to bite at the living.

Without a second thought I swing my weapon hard into his temple and nearly puke when the metal smashes straight through his skull. Out of the corner of my eye I see that Atlas lost his bat in a swing and is relying on his knife. I try not to worry. Atlas is good with a knife. He practices with a knife more than any of us. He knows where and how to strike the softest area to do the most damage.

Birdie has a cluster closing in on him, so his lifts his leg and Spartan kicks the hell out of creep closest to him causing a domino effect so that he can more easily face one at a time instead of three.

I would have stepped in to help out had I not had a small cluster of my own attempting to surround me. I can handle myself well, but I'm short and I hate when they close in like this because I can't see around them to check on the boys.

So done with this, I kick my leg back causing the creep hoping to attack from behind to stumble back. This gives me the opportunity to deal with the two fuckers in my face.

Raising the crowbar that's feeling heavier and heavier the more I swing it around, I slam it into the first skull and then back into the second. As soon as I know they're down, I spin around and whip out my knife to take out the last creep as I stab my long hunting knife through its eye.

Panting, I look to my left and right where Birdie and Atlas are in similar positions, also trying to catch their breath.

"What... the... hell?" Atlas manages as he looks at all the corpses littering the ground.