Free The Lost Gods by Horace Brickley Page B

clamped down on his sinewy ankles, Adam jerked his leg free. The creature crawled toward Adam. He crab walked backwards until he had room to stand. Adam took a short step forward and soccer kicked the reanimate in the head. The blade of his foot collided with its skull and the old bone gave way. The undead football player sta ggered forward. Adam limped backward and searched for some kind of weapon. A few yards away, he spotted a rock the size of a potato. He hobbled over to it and scooped it up. Adam waited for the giant reanimate to come to him. It raised its arms and hurried its pace. When it was near enough, Adam swung the rock at its face. The blow smashed the creature’s nose, but the power of the swing sent Adam off balance. He tripped and fell into the creature. They both toppled over.
    The fall disoriented Adam. Large arms wrapped around his body and the creature worked its head toward Adam's exposed neck. Adam squirmed away from the creature’s mouth. He managed to get on top of it and straddle its wide chest. Adam brought the point of his elbow down onto the creature’s head. Its nose broke with the first strike. He hammered away and away, long after the thing stopped moving. He kept elbowing the dead thing until his shoulder ached from the strong impacts.
    Satisfied that the creature was no longer a threat, A dam scanned the mass of churning bodies for Jesse. Inside the circle of undead, Jesse was still wreaking havoc. The group around Jesse had diminished, but dozens remained. Between the brawl and Adam, motionless bodies littered the dirt. The sight of all the gore and twisted corpses turned Adam’s stomach. He stood and limped toward the scene and yelled for Jesse. Jesse did not respond. Adam, not wanting to run into the meat grinder, looked for another weapon. After a long scan, he saw the reanimate he had head-butted into oblivion. He rolled it over and found his machete was still stuck in its spine. He grabbed the handle and yanked the machete free.
    He heard rustling in the underbrush to his left. A group of reanimates emerged from the foliage: half a dozen at first. A few yards to his right, another group arrived. The rustling grew louder. He flipped around and spotted yet another, larger group, coming out of the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing.
    Adam stopped short of the border of the fight. His leg and chest throbbed in pain. He planted his feet and swung his machete at the neck of the closest reanimate. It was nude, short, and frail with Frankenstein stitch work where its organs used to be. The blunt machete did not cut through the decaying flesh and bone, but it produced a resonating twang and a sickening crack. The creature dropped to the ground and rolled toward Adam. Its eye sockets were empty. Adam shuddered at the sight.
    Another reanimate rotated around and faced Adam. Without pause, Adam brought the machete down on top of its head. Its skull split and Adam kneed the creature in the stomach. He wrenched his blade free and yelled for Jesse.
    Jesse heard him and stared at Adam. Jesse worked his way out of the crowd; dropping reanimates with single strokes of his cudgel and shoving the less-threatening creatures aside.
    “We need to get out of here! More are coming! A lot more!” Adam shouted.
    Jesse nodded, but he continued to brain the creatures with a vigor and pace that Adam could never match. Adam analyzed the carnage that Jesse had created and felt both impressed and horrified.
    “We need to go!” Adam yelled.
    …
    Jesse nodded again. He found a clear path to the tree line and pointed to it with his cudgel. Dark brown matter covered the cudgel, glistening in the fading light. Jesse and Adam made their way through the obstacle course of fallen and still-moving reanimates. A growing line of reanimates blocked the path back to Iskra.
    “Shit! Where do we go?” Adam asked.
    “I don't know,” said Jesse. He scanned the tree line. To the north was a patch of forest clear