Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,52

hurtling forward. Two rows left.

Second row. Where Blair and Siggy sat, my brain comments, like it matters AT ALL.

We’re not going to make it.

“Get her on the stage!” I yelp at Imani, and I dash sideways in the row instead of climbing over the next one, trying to draw the pursuing zombie away.

One row behind me, the zombie rushes after me.

I feel the brush of his fingers on my arm.

And then I realize the fatal flaw in my plan.

Because there’s an aisle I have to cross to get to the next section of chairs.

And not even the flimsy barrier of a row of seats will be between me and the zombie chasing me.

And there’s another zombie, a woman in a loud, jaguar-patterned sequined shirt, stumbling down the aisle toward the front of the stage.

Two zombies converged in a ballroom, and I—I ran right into both of them.

14

Behind me, Imani’s voice shrieks like metal on metal.

“JUNE, LOOK OUT!”

At the sound of her voice, the jaguar-print zombie looks away from me toward the stage.

It gives me the split second I need.

If I was coordinated, it would be kind of beautiful.

I burst out into the aisle as both zombies turn.

They flail toward me, but they’re heading where I was.

Not where I am, where I’ve ducked, tucked, and rolled into the world’s clumsiest somersault.

But muscle memory takes over and I feel like I’m in elementary school again, wearing pink tights and a black leotard.

The two zombies collide above me. The impact is so hard they spin off each other, knocked back like billiard balls.

I rocket to my feet, spin, then I’m back in the rows, rushing back the way I came, headlong to the stage.

Imani and the camerawoman grab my forearms and boost me so hard I can almost stick the landing on my feet.

Or at least it feels like that as I fall into their arms.

“You jerk!” Imani scolds, giving me a quick hug, as the two zombies chasing me reach the stage. They batter against it with their chests, arms reaching out.

They can’t climb it. Or perhaps, like all their movements so far, it’s completely uncoordinated, unthought, and they simply can’t get enough of their mass to fall forward over the stage lip.

“Thanks,” I say to Imani and the camerawoman.

“No, thank you,” the camerawoman says. “I’m Rosa García.”

She gently wipes her sleeve across her bloody chin.

“You’re welcome, Rosa.” I pant. “I’m June Blue.”

“I’m-Imani-Choi-and-we-can’t-stay-here,” Imani says in a rush. She points.

At least ten more zombies from the huge mass in the back of the ballroom have noticed us. They stumble down the aisles toward the stage.

“What happens when they all see us? There are what, two hundred of them? Three hundred? At least. The stage could break or they might find a way up,” Rosa asks.

“Agreed,” I say. “We need to get to that stairwell.”

“Siggy and Blair and the actors went that way.” Imani points stage right.

We start moving, behind the row of chairs and toward the edge of the stage. I glance back out at the scene behind us.

The biggest clump of bodies, both human and zombie, is by the main set of doors. From the stage it looks surreal, like the set of a war movie, or like the carpet is somehow an ocean, and the bodies are the debris of a shipwreck, washing against the walls in undulating waves.

Except the carpet isn’t moving, and the movement is only from the zombies now, tearing, pulling, and ripping . . .

There’s a second, smaller group of bodies a short distance away from the main entrance, at the next set of doors. Mostly silence, and tearing movement. No survivors.

But at the next set of doors after that, a huddle of around ten humans has rallied and stands in a semicircle. A table has been turned on