me go, you know. I’m really more trouble than I’m worth,” she said, trying some psychology on him in a vain attempt at distracting him.
“You really are, but then, I plan to kill you when your usefulness is over. Don’t wish your life away so easily, Officer Petit.”
“Xavier will come after you. He won’t rest until you’re stopped.”
“He can try, but we’ll be long gone before he wakes up.”
That’s what he thought. Sellars was missing one vital piece of information. Xavier was immune. He healed fast. Maybe fast enough to regain consciousness from a whack to the head and be coherent enough to do something about it.
The fog thickened as she entered the dark space beneath the pines bordering her backyard. Sudden motion off to her right. She ducked out of the way as a clawed hand came slashing through the darkness. It hit Sellars’s gun, sending it skittering away into the underbrush. Sarah crouched, taking stock of the situation. The zombie wasn’t after her. It seemed to have turned on Sellars and was stalking him as he tried to bring the creature under control.
“I command you to stop! I am your master!” Sellars was shouting, but the creature kept advancing on him. It lashed out with its claws, catching Sellars under the chin. He went down hard, hitting the loamy ground with a hard thud.
The zombie was on him in seconds, using its teeth to grab on to anything it could. Blood welled as Sellars screamed. Sarah watched in horror as the zombie turned on its creator, savaging him.
As the zombie sank his blood-stained teeth into Sellars’s shoulder, she scrambled to get away, but the loamy earth wasn’t stable, given the soles of her slippers. She was deathly afraid that once the zombie was through with Sellars, he would turn on her, and she had precious little protection. No darts, no bullets, not even a knife. Perhaps worst of all, no clothes to speak of, and not even a decent pair of shoes on her feet. What she wouldn’t give for a good pair of boots right now. If that zombie felt like taking a bite out of her, there was little she could do to prevent it. She couldn’t even run very fast in the slippers, and ditching them could be hazardous considering the sharp bits of debris strewn across the uneven ground. If she stabbed herself in the foot with a tree branch, she wouldn’t be able to outmaneuver the undead bastard at all.
Sellars’s screams died to whimpers, but he still managed to evade the zombie’s teeth when they aimed for his nose, ears and other bits of his face. So far, the damage was to his torso only. A small blessing, though he was just as likely to die. The contagion worked fast. It didn’t care what route it took into the human body. Once there, it did its deadly work silently and efficiently, taking over the host and turning its body into something out of a nightmare.
Sellars was down for the count. He still fought, but the zombie had clearly won. It left him and turned its attention on Sarah. She’d gotten to her feet and managed to move several yards away, toward the edge of the trees bordering her backyard. She kept her eye on the creature. The last thing she wanted was for it to sneak up on her. She’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. She’d learned her lesson from previous encounters.
The creature advanced as she inched backward, her feet slipping on the thick layer of loose pine needles and other leafy debris made slick by the dewy fog that lay over the ground like a blanket. If she could just get to the grass. Out from under the trees, the grass in her backyard enabled reasonably sure footing, even in slippers. She edged back. She didn’t dare take her eyes from the creature. He was moving steadily now, faster than any zombie she’d seen to date.
His eyes looked almost menacing. He was just as dead as all the others she’d faced, but this one seemed more aware somehow. His eyes held a spark of anger, a glimmer of rage. At the moment, it was directed at her, and she felt a tingle of fear race down her spine.
“Look, buddy,” she said, trying to reason with the creature. “I didn’t do anything to you. No harm, no foul. You go your way, I go mine. All right?”
“Kill…”
Carried on the misty