Sophie screamed again in the sudden darkness. She bucked and twisted, straining to break free of the hands that dug into her shoulders and waist even as she fought the panic flooding through her. If she lost control, the water would come crashing back and drown them both. Her feet were already getting soaked as the things dragged her deeper into the tunnel. Pulling on years of training, Sophie shoved the fear aside and jammed her elbow back hard.
It should have hit tissue hard enough to drive the air from her assailant’s lungs. Instead pain shot down her arm as it caught a glancing blow off of something smooth and hard. She tried to pivot, but another one grabbed her free arm, wrenching it back. Pain bloomed in her shoulder and the earth trembled as water began to rain from the ceiling.
“No!” she shouted.
A roar echoed in the tunnel. The creatures shrieked and chittered. Then suddenly she was free, the bony hands knocked away as something rocketed into them.
No, not something. Mick.
Sophie st
umbled away from the snarling, splashing mass and blocked them out, stretching out her mind and shoving at the weight of the water. It was so heavy in her mind, pressing in on all sides. Her body shook with the effort of forcing it away again.
Something nudged her hip, and she shrieked, raising her hands, lightning balling in her palm. She managed to stop herself from striking out as the flickering light revealed a huge black wolf. He nudged her hip again, pushing her back toward the entrance. Sophie lifted her hand high, looking down the tunnel.
Bits of skeletons were scattered across the floor. Skeletons. No wonder she hadn’t hit flesh. As she looked, the torso of one rolled over and began groping its way toward them. More skeletal figures emerged, their bony fingers outstretched, their mouths gaping and closing with a clack! as they ran with their stumbling, shuffling gait.
“Run!” she shouted, sprinting away from the entrance.
Beside her, Mick snarled and nipped at her heels, trying to herd her back toward the stairs.
“I know where I’m going. Come on!”
Hands reached out from the walls, grasping at her hair, tugging her clothes, making her stumble. She tore free, focusing furiously on shoving every last drop of standing water deeper into the ground. Dry, dry. It has to be dry. If she fired off any of her lightning with water on the ground, she risked electrocuting Mick. His rubber-soled boots had gone the way of the rest of his clothes when he shifted.
Almost there.
Something burst out of the wall to Sophie’s left, and her shoulder sank into rotting flesh. Arms came hard around her, a clumsy vice grip. Suppressing a gag at the putrid smell, Sophie slammed her head back against the zombie’s. Her vision went blurry, and she heard a satisfying crunch before the arms fell away. Shoving hard, she stumbled back.
A stream of zombies shambled out of this new breach in the wall, moving fast. So fast. These were the newly dead, flesh still clinging to bone, desperate with hunger. Mick lunged, his massive jaws closing around a neck and shaking hard until it cracked, then dropping it and lunging again. One after another, more peeled away, coming for her.
She drew her Sig Sauer and fired, knowing the special rounds weren’t coded for zombies. The one in the lead stumbled, and fell, so she kept firing, aiming for their heads. But it wasn’t enough. There were too many. Sophie screamed as they converged around her, clawing, pulling, biting. She collapsed under their weight.
Mick roared, and she could hear him fighting his way toward her.
“Stay back!” she shouted. “Mick, get back!”
Lightning exploded out of her. Flesh burned and bones splintered. Chunks of blackened zombie hit the walls with a squishy thud. Sophie scrambled to her feet, looking for Mick who crouched a dozen yards away, ears flattened. He huffed a noise that might have been approval before yipping a warning and tossing his head. She turned in the direction he’d indicated and shot out another volley of lightning. The approaching pair of zombies splattered.
The stench of burned flesh was so strong, she gagged as she tried to shout, “Move! Move!”
They scrambled around a corner and nearly skidded into the wall. In the strobing light of her lightning ball, Sophie could see the door to the vault at the far end of the tunnel.
And between them and it, a veritable army of the dead.
Panic beat a hard tattoo in her chest. Her head ached with the strain of holding back water. Mick pressed so close to her side, she could feel the vibration of his growl. From behind she could hear the grumbling, growling advance of more. Trapped on both sides.
No. No it wasn’t going to end like this.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
He bumped his head against her hip in a gesture she took to mean yes.
“Stay close.”
Sophie curled her fingers in the ruff of Mick’s neck to ground him and opened herself, reaching deep, beyond the wall of water, above the dirt and stone into the atmosphere. She pulled, using herself as a conduit and throwing the energy out in a sparking, multipronged attack that lit up every zombie with an ounce of flesh. As body parts splatted to the ground, Sophie swayed, tasting blood. But the way was clear.
She let Mick go, and he leapt forward to take out the skeletons still standing. Dizzy, Sophie fastened her gaze on the vault door, staggering through carnage as Mick shattered bone. Twenty feet. Ten. Almost there.