"Do not slow down! Hit it with everything we have!" I roared over the screaming engine.​"Brace yourselves guys!" Sarah yelled back.​She gripped the steering wheel with all he might. Her foot pressed the gas pedal against the floorboard. The military truck surged forward like an angry beast.​BANG!​The bumper slammed into the frame of the middle bus. The impact threw me against the dashboard. Sparks showered the shattered windshield. ​We tore straight through the blockade. The bus spun wildly off the road, crashing down a rocky ditch.​"Keep moving!"​Sarah did not hesitate. We left the smoking wreckage behind, plunging deeper into the unforgiving wasteland.​For days, the world outside our windows was all dead twisted trees. But the thrill of the open road quickly dissolved into a gut-wrenching tension. The highway began to twist and narrow. Ruined cars piled up like mountains, forcing Sarah to constantly swerve.​"Master," Gulp tapped my shoulder. "I do not mean to be a burden b

"Run! Do not just stand there, run for the back alley!" Rina screamed at the top of her lungs, waving her crossbow toward the dark storage room.​"There are too many of them!" Sarah yelled back as she swung her pipe wildly at a leaping monster. "The front doors are completely shattered! Oh my god, the whole street is pouring inside!"​"Forget the front! We are not fighting a hundred of those things!" I stepped in front of her to block a zombie's claws with the flat side of my Black Iron Blade. "Midnight, get down from those shelves! We are leaving this building!"​"This way! The loading dock doors are chained but we can slip through the broken delivery window!" Rina shouted, firing an arrow into the chest of a gray-skinned monster.​"Move, Sarah! I will cover our backs!" I slashed my sword in a wide arc that forced three approaching zombies to stumble backward over a pile of spilled cans.​"I am moving! I am moving!" Sarah grabbed the heavy canvas bag of food, sprinting down the nar

I looked at Sarah and Rina. ​"Guys," I said letting out a breath. "Let's say our final goodbyes."​I closed my eyes resigning myself to the absurdity of the situation. "One, two..."​SMACK!​A pain erupted right against the side of my face. My eyes flew open. A dusty, worn-out sandal bounced off my cheek clattering onto the rooftop.​I rubbed my jaw. Sarah was standing on one foot, her left leg bare, glaring at me with an expression that could have melted solid steel.​"What do you mean, 'say our goodbyes'?! Are you seriously giving up right now? Think of a way to save us! You have too many crazy ideas bouncing around in that head of yours, so pick one to use it!"​"Hey! I was just being realistic for five seconds!" I yelled back, "what do you want me to do, throw my sword at the rotors?"​Meow.​An utterly bored vibration came from my right shoulder. ​"Zilu, let's go back to our place," Midnight's voice echoed smoothly in my mind. "This localized geographic area has an uncomfortab

​I practically shoved Sara toward the passenger door. ​Sarah didn't argue. She threw herself into the middle seat. Rina vaulted into the cab right behind her slamming the door shut.​I dove into the driver’s seat.​The immediate aftermath of our panicked escape hit us the second the doors sealed. The temperature inside the cab was dropping rapidly as the night air swept. ​In my infinite wisdom as the supposed savior of this mismatched group, I had used the dimensional ring to give everyone a relaxing bath in a hot spring. ​"I am warning you right now, Zilu," Sarah's teeth clattered together like a pair of castanets. She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest."If my lungs collapse from pneumonia, my ghost is going to spend the rest of eternity knocking over your door. Every single night. For the rest of your life."​"Oh, quit your whining," I wrestled with the stubborn rusted column shifter as I tried to force the transmission into neutral. "At least your skin isn't actively pe

"Are those… people on the bridge?"​Sara’s voice broke the silence inside the truck. She was leaning so far forward her nose was practically touching the freezing glass of the windshield.​"Where?" Rina's head whipped up from the crossbow she had been quietly inspecting in her lap.​I squinted through the smear of dried black blood that still streaked the driver's side window. The twin yellow beams of our headlights cut through the highway fog, illuminating the cracked asphalt ahead. We were doing about seventy miles an hour. The heater was finally blasting properly, turning the cab into a sweltering little box but a cold sweat immediately broke out on the back of my neck.​About a quarter mile down the road, the highway dipped slightly, passing directly underneath a massive overpass.​"They aren't people," I said. My grip tightened on the steering wheel.​The overpass was completely packed. Hundreds of silhouettes were crammed against the low railing, silhouetted against the faint