Cursing the darkness, she pulled a small flashlight from her belt pouch and, holding her breath, flicked it on.
Four figures at the fence turned away from their feast, rotted faces in permanent snarls created by flesh ripped away from bone. She swallowed bile as she recognized the orc’s victims: Eden and Maria’s mother. Their prone bodies were torn open, their ripped clothes soaked with blood.
Rachael lunged forward, thrusting the dagger into the eye of one of the feasting orcs, tore it free and plunged it through the skull of another. She kicked a third into the fence. Pulling up one of the metal stakes providing extra support to the fence, she drove it into the fourth one’s head, before kicking the punctured skull off in time to finish off the remaining one with a power swing into its hideous face.
The fence behind her shook in a rattle of metal, and Rachael leapt to her feet, ready to fight more hordes of orcs. But instead, she was faced with Maria, the Wonder Woman crown askew on her head. The girl was clearly terrified and covered in blood, but in one unbitten piece. Rachael wanted to hug her, but Maria turned, sliding the last of the fence into place and wrapping the wires tightly.
“It’s done,” she said, voice both shaky and numb. Rachael recognized that tone; the same one she’d used when she realized her phone was dead and she could no longer contact her family. Not exactly defeat, but close. A weariness of the soul that ran deep.
“The fence was cut, Rachael,” Maria added flatly. “I looked. It was cut, and big enough for the orcs to get through. I think someone did it on purpose . . . ”
“Please, I want to go back,” Kate sobbed. Rachael yanked her knife out of the orc’s skull, holding it at the ready as she ran behind the two girls back toward the hospital building. Pushing them toward the door, Rachael returned to the fight, drawing her sword again and slashing with anger through the orcs that stumbled her way.
This was their home. It was supposed to be their safe place, and her anger drove each strike of the blade as she cut down orcs, littering the ground around her with their fallen bodies.
They were down to the last tattered remnants of the horde, at least as far as she could see. Only a handful of orcs still shambled and moaned at them, reaching out with bloody hands.
Alice yelled out to her left, and Rachael turned to see her friend sprawled on the ground, clutching her ankle. Rachael lunged at the orc trying to claw at Alice, slicing its hand off and sending the rotted appendage flying. She swung the sword at faces and arms and legs, sending other orcs stumbling backward against their fellow undead. Rachael kept after them, weaving a protective circle of steel around Alice with the gleaming arcs of her sword and dagger.
“Keep it going!” she bellowed to her forces, slicing with her sword to keep an orc back. It collapsed as a club smashed into its head. Andy nodded at Rachael before bounding back into the fight.
Rachael turned and watched as the last of the orcs fell and their teams—their family—gathered back together. She looked around at the grim scene. Most of the squads were down to only one or two members. A quick count told her that at least fifteen of them had fallen.
Rachael felt numb, her heart sinking. They had trusted her, put their faith in her. Would they think she failed them?
As if the survivors read her mind, a number of fighters reached out to her, offering a hand of support or a squeeze of solidarity. They didn’t need to say the words; she could hear them even in silence. They had made their choice. They fought for their home, and they would do it again. They fought for each other, and they fought for her.
A figure stepped toward her out of the gloom. Brett. And then he was there, cradling her face in his hands as he looked into her eyes. He kissed her deeply and she melted into the kiss, her terror and sadness momentarily gone as he hugged her to his chest.
Rachael wanted to stay there forever, but there was work to be done. Injuries to tend to, wounds to heal. She took a deep breath and pulled away to help Alice to her feet, slinging an arm over her shoulder and guiding her through the door into the darkened lobby of the hospital. Into the home they’d protected at such a great cost.
A gunshot rang out, the bullet echoed past Rachael as it struck the wall a foot from her shoulder, shattering the tile. She froze, still supporting Alice and unable to get to the sword at her side, eyes darting around for the source of the attack.
“Well, I guess I’ll need to take care of you myself, since the dead couldn’t handle it.”
Rachael looked up and around, following the sound of the voice. She recognized it, but not its tone of confidence.
There. Up on the dimly lit lobby balcony overhead.
Mark leveled his weapon at Rachael, eyes pools of dark shadows as he stared her down.
“Mark, put the gun down. Please.” She tried to keep her voice level. Seeing her distress, Brian moved in to support Alice. Rachael stepped forward, putting herself between the gunman and the rest of her people. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some of her trainees moving along the wall, out of Mark’s eyesight, stealthily creeping towards the side stairwell.
Keep him distracted, the voice in her mind whispered. Keep him talking.
“Why?” she asked. “Why are you trying to do this? You can have this as your home, you can be part of something bigger—”
“I don’t want to be part of your home,” Mark scoffed, shifting his grip on the gun. “You’ve made this a perfectly hospitable place, and we want it for our own.”
“‘We’?” she prompted, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow, putting on a mask of confidence. Shadows shifted up above, prompting anxious cries from her friends as four men, armed with gleaming knives, appeared along the railing. Rachael swallowed hard.
“And there’s more where they came from,” Mark added with a smug smirk.
“There’s more than enough room for all of—” she began, but Mark cut her off, pacing back and forth along the railing.
“No, there’s not enough room for you,” he snapped, gesturing with the gun. “This place is ours now. Ours. That’s how it is now. You don’t like it? Tough shit. We earned this spot. You couldn’t keep it and that means you don’t deserve to have it. Simple math.” He paused for a moment and shook his head. “I was hoping you’d move out when the fences fell, but you didn’t. Kind of hoped you’d all get bitten. That would have been easy. Well . . . for us, I mean. The rotters chow down on you and then we get rid of them. E
asy peasy. But don’t get me wrong, if I have to just shoot you myself, I will. You can count on that shit.”