Free The Unkillables by J. Boyett Page B

pause. The deer reared back and made an unearthly noise, a kind of wrathful bleat. There was a whistle inside the sound, as the air expelled by the deer was partially blocked by the spear handle lodged in its throat.
    The deer began advancing again right away, its head cocked at a funny angle because of the spear. Again it bleated, with that eerie whistle.
    The Jaw sprang past Chert, at the deer. The deer snapped at him but missed. The Jaw grabbed the spear and tried to use it as a handle to swing the animal’s head around and smash it into a tree. But the deer reared up on its hind legs and swung itself back and forth, throwing the Jaw and sending him flying head-first into a tree, instead. For the second time that day, the youth was knocked out.
    Chert darted forward and slipped his own spear between the thing’s ribs. When it tried to come down onto its front feet again, the spear held him propped up for a few moments. The thing waved its feet and screamed in rage at being immobilized. As Chert retreated from it, he took a quick swipe with his axe at the sinews of its left hip.
    Chert knew his spear wasn’t going to stand up to the weight of that thrashing animal, so as soon as he saw he’d succeeded in delaying it he rushed for the Jaw. Sure enough, as he was hefting his son onto his sore shoulders for the second time since morning, the spear snapped and the animal came crashing down. He was no longer naïve enough to hope that damage to the undead’s organs would have any effect, but as he glanced back it looked to him like he’d managed to do some damage to the hip.
    “Chert!” screamed Veela. “Chert!”
    Without looking at her he tore off through the night with his son on his back. He was leaving their weapons behind; as far as he was concerned, that meant they were providing the woman with more help than they owed or she deserved. He hoped whatever other undead creatures might be out tonight would also have a helpful green glow, so he could avoid them. As for Veela, he thought he’d taken the measure of her unimaginably pathetic tracking abilities. It was safe to say she’d never find them again, unless that little man had some magic that could help her.
    Behind him he heard the woman screaming something unintelligible. He ignored her—he had enough to worry about, hauling the Jaw’s weight through the forest in the dark, and had no idea Veela was trying to warn him they wouldn’t be able to get far.

Seven
    V eela spent a couple minutes trying to smash the deer’s skull with a rock. Because the animal had no arms and hands to grip her with, she was able to hang on desperately to its neck as it tried to twist its head around and snap at her with its small mouth.
    “Dak!” she kept saying. It was hard to keep from screaming, but she knew the communicator would be able to pick up her voice even if she whispered, and she was afraid being loud would attract more zombies. Not that there was much point in keeping her voice down, what with all the thrashing she and the deer were doing, as she kept trying to bash it. “Dak, you have to shoot this fucking thing!”
    “We have to conserve our energy,” he replied blithely from the communicator. “It isn’t like there are any power stations where we can refuel.”
    Veela jerked her head back an instant before the glowing deer could bite her in the face. “But this thing is going to kill me!”
    “Don’t worry, I’m monitoring your progress; you’re doing better than you think you are. If things get too hairy, I’ll step in. But we are going to eventually have to live in this world without the technological advantages we’re accustomed to.”
    That was true. And while it didn’t feel to Veela like she was doing very well against the zombie deer, she supposed she was too close to the situation to be an objective judge. For a while she continued to keep her arm locked around the deer’s neck and bang it ineffectually in the head with her rock. This