Read Deadly Night: Jenni and Katie's Untold Tale: A Short Story From the As The World Dies Universe (As The World Dies Untold Tales Book 4) for Free Online Page A

readied herself to fight.
    The small pack of runners raced past the store front, their ungodly shrieks filling Jenni with terror. For a second, she flashed on Lloyd and Mikey chasing after the battered white truck on the morning Katie had rescued her. Shivering, she closed her eyes to abolish the image.
    “Six,” Shane counted in a lowered voice.
    Jenni exhaled. “We can take them.”
    Curtis shushed Jenni and Shane, then dared to glance at the road. Leaning toward the group, he whispered, “Slow ones only a few blocks down.”
    The smack of the runners’ feet against road incited the need to kill inside Jenni. They were getting away. She started toward the sidewalk.
    Juan maintained his hold on her. “Hold up, Loca . I say we let them keep running. Who knows what they’re chasing? Probably shadows and moonlight. Let them run.”
    “I say we head back to the fort,” Shane insisted.
    “I agree. It’s getting dicey out here, and we don’t got any fallback positions out this far,” Curtis said, bobbing his head in agreement.
    “But what about those men?” Jenni stared at the group incredulously. “We said we’d find them and take them to the fort.”
    “That crazy bitch and the kids are back at the fort, where we should be, so I say we did our good deed,” Shane retorted. “Let’s call it a night.”
    “Juan, we can’t go back.”
    “Yeah, we can, Jenni. Runners change everything. How many more might be heading this way?” Juan gently brushed her cheek with his fingertips, but she ducked away from him.
    “I don’t break my word.” Jenni started forward, but Juan again dragged her back.
    Bending over, he whispered in her ear, “You can’t save everyone, but save us right now.”
    Spearing him with an angry look, Jenni shrugged his hand off her. “Fine.”
    The three men visibly relaxed, and Jenni realized just how fearful they’d been that she’d run off. Letting the disgust she felt at their refusal to help her radiate out of her gaze, she checked the road herself. There were slow moving zombies several blocks away, and the runners had vanished into the night.
    Jenni slipped out of the entrance and rushed around the corner onto a street that bypassed the fort. Juan and the others followed in her wake. They all moved as quietly as possible and stuck to the shadows. At each alleyway, they hesitated, checked for zombies, then hurried onward.
    Every little noise they made echoed about them. Jenni tried to run on her tip-toes, but her boots still slapped loudly against the red brick road. The sound of gunfire nearby was hopefully diverting the attention of the dead. As she crossed an intersection, Jenni glimpsed the shambling crowd on the parallel street moving in the direction of the fort wall.
    Juan cursed under his breath. “That new wall better fuckin’ hold.”
    The runner erupted out of the abandoned lot behind a string of stores that faced the fort. It was a huge man with powerful arms, and it was on them in seconds. Shrieking, it lunged at Juan. Jenni gasped, but Juan was quick and ducked out of the way while swinging his ax at the zombie’s head. He missed and hit the creature’s shoulder. The zombie tried to seize Juan again, the movement wrenching the ax handle from Juan’s hands.
    “Shit,” Juan gasped, ducking away.
    Realizing the crowbar was useless against someone so much bigger and stronger than her, Jenni raised the Beretta and fired off a shot. The zombie darted toward Shane, the bullet missing. Shane skittered out of the zombie’s way, trying to get distance. Curtis darted behind the zombie and fired at the zombie’s head. Again, the runner was so fast, the bullet punched into its back, not its head.
    “Someone fuckin’ kill it!” Shane shouted while continuing to dodge and scamper out of the grip of the zombie.
    Jenni fired again, missing.
    Shane howled at her in rage. “Bitch, you almost hit me!”
    The runner continued to pursue Shane toward the fort wall. In his