Free Wolf Running by Toni Boughton

connecting with a hard surface. The grip relaxed and a low moan told her it was a Rev. She whirled to face the thing, bringing her make-shift club around in a wide arc. The Rev, a man in shorts and a ball cap, had recovered quickly and he moved within the circle of her swing. Her blow missed. Again he moaned, louder this time, and raised ragged hands toward her.
    She lunged forward, leading with her shoulder. The impact sent the Rev stumbling backwards a few feet. Nowen turned and shoved through the door and then leaned back on it, forcing it closed. She had to move, now - the door wouldn’t keep the Rev from following her. She ran toward the police car, glancing south down the street as she did. And froze.
    Drawn by the noise she had made, or the moans from the dead man, or perhaps some other sense entirely, the mass of Revs was looking at her. A great moaning came from them, an unearthly noise that rose and fell like an ocean wave. They began to move toward her, the sight of fresh prey increasing their shuffling pace to almost a jog.
    From behind her Nowen heard more moans, the northern group responding to the call to hunt. She spared a glance back at the station in time to see the grey-skinned man fall against the door, pushing it open. Damn. Damn! One option left - get back to the hospital.
    She ran, a full-out sprint. The Revs answered her challenge with another ululation, hungry in its intent. Reaching the green station wagon that blocked the alley she threw the blue pack over the top of the car and then moved to the hood and pulled herself up. Her palms were sweaty and she slipped on the hot metal, falling back to the street. The undead were moaning constantly now, and she could hear similar sounds coming from further away as other Revs picked up the call.
    Nowen hoisted herself up on the hood again and then up to the roof. She looked behind her. The Revs had reached her, a group a sixty or more strong, and as she looked down on them she could see that Flux had spared no one. From the very young to the very old, from black to white and every color in between, the hungry mob were united in their desire to reach her. Bloody hands grasped for purchase on the slippery metal side of the car. Their jaundiced eyes were locked on her, tracking her every movement, and their jaws chewed the air in anticipation.
    Nowen turned her back on the crowd and jumped down to the alley. The station wagon was proving to be an adequate block, but she wasn’t going to hang around to find out how long it would last. She scooped up the blue backpack and ran toward the hospital.
    At the edge of the parking lot she looked up to see the open window from which she had climbed down earlier. Safety was so close now. But there was movement very near in the parking lot, and as she watched four Revs came from behind the painters’ van and staggered toward her.
    Nowen tensed, every muscle and tendon drawing tight as a bow string. Strange thoughts flashed through her head, quicksilver and wild. These creatures had invaded her territory. They were a danger to her den, and they must be driven off or killed. The pack dropped unnoticed from her hand as she leaned forward, a deep feral noise rising from her chest and thrumming through her throat. They moved toward each other, the living and the undead.
    She met them in a flurry of movement, the metal pipe rising and falling to smash against skulls and arms and ribs. There was a feeling that she stood outside her body and watched it do these things of its own accord. She moved like a dervish, cracking a skull so the brains spilled through, then leaping aside to avoid a bite before swinging around to deliver a crippling blow to another Rev’s legs. A face rose up before her, grey-lipped mouth yawning wide, and she slammed the pipe against the slack jaw. Teeth and blood exploded from the Rev’s mouth. She grabbed the back of its head, her fingers sinking into a greasy tangle of hair, and drove the pipe into a