Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,101

We advance in, and the others scrabble toward us, low or crouched under the jet of water.

To my surprise, Cuellar comes last, slinging the ax around him like he’s some kind of medieval knight, knocking the last of the zombies away from the retreating group and into the jet of water.

Janet and Annie take the hose as Hunter and Siggy come forward to spell them in the fighting.

Cuellar, Simon, and Blair stand with their weapons raised, and wait for Imani to turn off the jet.

Hunter, Siggy, and I join them, standing tight in a row, ready to sweep in.

“When you say go, I’ll keep the ones down on the right,” Imani says, and she gives the plume of water a twitch, indicating the direction so there will be no confusion.

“Got it,” Simon says.

“Go!” Cuellar yells.

Blair nods, determined.

Imani aims the jet at the zombies on the right side of the tube, keeping them down.

Hunter, Siggy, and I follow Cuellar, Simon, and Blair in a rush down to the zombies sprawled on the left side of the tube.

We’re getting splashed by droplets from the hose impacting the other zombies, and I’m desperately trying not to think of the words blood borne or bite borne or virus or atomized or whatever, as we take out the zombies struggling back to their soaking feet.

When those zombies are dispatched, Imani turns off the hose and we rush to finish the job off. All the zombies are down, and I think they’re all dead, but one behind Cuellar surges up, screaming a hissing, pressured noise out of his mangled throat.

Behind the zombie, Siggy lets out a pissed-off shriek and leaps forward, swinging her drawer plank down on the back of the zombie’s head. The zombie falls like a tree, but it’s still making those horrible noises.

Siggy steps onto its neck and makes a gimme motion with her hand. I hand over my mic arm. With a repeating “Ew!” keening noise, Siggy stabs the pointy end of the mic arm into the zombie’s ear.

The zombie goes completely slack.

With a violent tug, Siggy pulls the mic arm out of the zombie’s ear and hands my weapon back to me. She picks up her drawer plank again and tosses her long blonde hair back behind her shoulders.

Cuellar leans over panting, broad, square hands planted on his knees.

“Gotta hand it to you, girls,” he says, eyes sweeping over Imani, then me, then Siggy. “You’ve got some helluva will to live.”

I can’t help the crooked smile.

Imani slings the fire hose up, cocking the nozzle on her shoulder. “You got that right,” she tells him.

Siggy simply gives one long shiver of disgust. “Ew.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” I tell him.

Cuellar salutes us with the ax.

29

We clean our weapons on the clothes of the fallen zombies and cautiously move back into the long hallway that leads to the top of the escalators.

We have to decide what to do next, because now that we’ve cleared the zombies currently loose on this level, we have a window of opportunity.

Before other zombies in the ballroom find their way out the wide-open double doors.

We could go back in the tube and take the ax to the hotel-side hatchway again. But there’s the small issue of the SWAT team or whatever it was called getting ready to a mass of zombies, and unleashing them into the sleepy downtown of Senoybia.

My hometown.

Sleepy, small, nice-place-to-raise-kids Senoybia.

We need to tell the others what we heard.

Imani and Hunter and I explain to the others what we saw outside, and then heard on the Code Blue app. About how it sounds like the military or police are preparing to enter the exhibit hall through the loading dock.

“Man, if that don’t just sound perfect,” Cuellar says, his whisper so sharp it should be weaponized. “1800 hours, that’s 6:00 p.m. An hour.” He shakes his head. “Bet you dollars to donuts there’s some wannabe heroes down there