The smell of smoke was far stronger in the city, where bits of paper and ash twisted and rose into the air. City Hall’s bell chimed as the three ousted onto its roof. The two-story building had a tower with a large clock affixed below the bell’s ringing loft.

Mioko stepped over to the nearby ledge and surveyed the surroundings. Red-brick buildings huddled alongside one another and bracketed the streets while fires burned rampant across the area. Cars were abandoned in traffic jams or on sidewalks, some even sheathed in buildings like the one parked through the display window of a nearby restaurant. Among it all, zombies meandered and chased as survivors moved in sporadic directions.

Wolf followed Mioko’s gaze where she fixated on a message painted on a water tower. ‘Help.’

A woman screamed from the street beside them, and Jack turned to see her forced to the ground. He stepped in her direction, but Mioko reached out and grabbed his arm. When he looked, she gave a single shake of her head.

“What the hell happened?” Wolf asked. “Is this what y’all have been running from?” His attention continued to dart around as he looked at cars, fires, people, then abruptly turned whenever a gunshot sounded and again when the wind gusted.

Jack’s mood sunk. “This could be our fault,” he said absently.

Mioko’s face contorted, a mixture of emotion, before fixating on him. “Why the hell would you think something stupid like that? We’re not sending out zombies.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, but I think we kept returning to places near this city. And each time, portals soon followed us and forced us to flee. We killed what we could, but more times than not, we had to flee before we got overwhelmed. So we were leaving them behind…where they made their way here.”

Mioko forced her eyes closed and scrubbed her knuckles against her forehead. Her jaw flexed, and when she opened her eyes, they were resolute. “No. I don’t accept that. These peop—” Her words cut short as she grit her teeth and looked away.

She swept her finger across the area as she continued. “These assholes have been talking about zombie invasions longer than I’ve been alive. So if you want to blame someone. And it’s not Hnoss. Blame them. Their dead asses is what allows it to spread.”

Jack and Wolf exchanged glances. When Mioko looked at them, her eyes still had an edge, but they glistened.

A group of survivors fled on an adjacent street. Mioko opened a lockspace ahead of them and beckoned. They rushed through, filing onto the roof.

Jack watched the last survivor rush past, then met Mioko’s gaze. “And if one of them is infected?” he asked.

“That’s for them to sort out. Let’s go.”

----------------------------------------

They ousted, abandoned vehicles constricting movement along the streets. The air was saturated with smoke, gunfire, and bad smells. It caused Wolf’s throat to dry and ache, all of it making it more difficult for him to pay attention.

Some of the older zombies roamed the area, smelling of dirt. Dust, Wolf thought. Dusties. But most were fresher. Their natural skin tones muted, while red and black gore seeped from various wounds. They were the ones that smelled sticky like the ones in the ditch. So Stickies. Dusties and Stickies.

“Wolf!”

“Hmm?” Wolf asked.

“Pull your head out of your ass!” Mioko declared.

Wolf looked around again, seeing Jack and Mioko ready for a fight. “And just what exactly do you expect me to do here?”

“Don’t get dead. Obviously.”

Mioko didn’t wait for a response. She turned back towards a pair of Sticky zombies, then sprinted into a lockspace, ousting at one’s flank. She kicked the side of its knee, which folded. It collapsed towards her, where she sliced, the top of its head separating like the eye sockets were a perforated line.

As it fell, she translocked elsewhere, attacking the remaining zombie from behind. She struck once, her blade tip erupting from its forehead. It slumped forward with a kick to its back as her sword unsheathed from its skull. A wrist flick rid gore from her blade as she glared back at Wolf.

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Wolf’s ears flattened and he looked down, feeling like he peed a little, then turned to find Jack standing behind him.

“Hey,” Jack said, startling him. “Just stay away from everything until she burns off some steam. I’ll try to keep them away from us. Oh, and be careful around the old twitchy ones. They move kind of sporadic.”

Jack turned, axe in hand, marching the direction opposite Mioko. He approached a group whose arms were outstretched. More Stickies.

Jack torqued his axe like a thrown lever and zombie arms fell free. He turned, the axe coming back around parallel to the ground. Then it was heads that fell. He jabbed with the handle, then swung a hook with the same end. The middle of the haft was shoved into another body to create space. Then an overhead chop.

Wolf jumped as something grazed his ankle. A Sticky reached out from under a nearby car. He looked to Jack and Mioko, but they were engaged in their own battles. After a brief search, he found a yellow fire hydrant that the car had toppled.

Wolf retrieved it and made his way back around the vehicle in a waddle. With a wide stance, he squatted and dropped the hydrant on its head, its arm falling limp on the pavement. His nose scrunched as a dark red coagulation oozed out.

“Oh and Wolf,” Mioko said, suddenly beside him.

“Geyaah!” Wolf blurted on seeing her.

“Don’t eat them.”

Wolf’s gaze alternated between the hydrant and Mioko, disgusted. “Are you fucking serious? I have standards, you know?”

Lockbridges began opening around them and Dusties shambled out. The openings were elongated. Half of the zombies fell by either colliding with the portal lip or by brushing shoulders with one another. Wolf narrowed his eyes. This killed the city?

“Jack!” Mioko yelled. “Try to clear me a path through a lockbridge! I need to know where they’re coming from!”

Jack glanced back at them, then continued culling nearby Stickies.

“And what do I do?” Wolf asked.

Mioko shrugged. “Just don’t let them surround you. That would be stupid. And you would be dead.”

Mioko turned and struck, her sword swatting a Dusty as if striking chalk with bat. The head fell loose and crumbled under another zombie’s foot, causing a stumble. She opened a Drop below a separate lockbridge, those deposited falling from the sky elsewhere.

Wolf squinted to the distant fountain—the oust in the sky where zombies streamed down, falling to their re-death.

“Move!” Mioko yelled.

Wolf started and ducked as he saw Mioko lunging towards him. A thump-thump sounded and something slumped against his back. He glanced to the side to see a Sticky’s head roll to a stop, then its body slid off his back. His eyes widened. He retreated and spun to see the two cars it had lunged from between.

Mioko looked elsewhere, surveying the area before meeting his gaze. “You need to focus, Wolf. We’re not always going to be around when you’re in trouble.”

He nodded absently, but more than the near death experience, her eyes haunted him. As she turned away from him, they were full of remorse and devoid of life. Her gaze clung to him. Even as she turned away, he felt it pulling and thought he would be dragged behind it.

A hand touched his shoulder and he twisted away from it to find Jack.

“Are you alright?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, nodding again. “Startled me is all.”

Mioko hopped onto the hood of a car, opening several lockspaces around her. She put away her sword and readied a pair of pistols.

Wolf looked up to see her from several different angles, the ousts above them like entrances to an attic that wasn’t there. Her pistols descended through the openings like prairie dogs, firing a shot, then withdrawing to emerge elsewhere. Stickies and Dusties collapsed across the area.

A Sticky approached the car she stood on. She kicked its face, eliciting a wet smack. It recovered as she dropped to the ground, drawing her sword with both hands and slicing in a single motion as she landed. The zombie didn’t recover again as it fell, its head rolling away from its shoulders.

“We’re getting overrun,” Jack yelled.

A form howled atop a nearby roof, and everything else became less important. A humanoid wolf stood there with fur so dark it looked black. Its forehead stood more upright and was inset with feral eyes that looked out with contempt. The ears were too large as well, taller and more pointed than a wolf’s. And it’s hunt was the most wrong of all. It was unnatural; it was sport. That’s no wolf. It’s a fake. A phony.

The phony howled, not to harmonize with a pack, but to claim ‘this prey is mine.’ More fakes echoed the howl, eager to prove themselves the better hunter.

The existence of the fakes annoyed the ever-loving shit out of Wolf. He growled and stepped towards the larger beast as it charged his way. Wolf vaguely heard Mioko call to him, his ear twitching in response. But they had their fights; this one was his. His stride lengthened, his pace quickening. He snarled.

Then his footing was gone. Confusion replaced his anger. He looked down, descending into a lockspace.

Wolf’s arms pinwheeled, as he fell. His fall threw him horizontally, where he passed through a lockbridge and crashed onto grass. He landed on his chin, and his hind legs flopped over his head.

Wolf pushed himself up, preparing for the fight, when he noticed the log-bench and the campground they had set up the night prior. He spun around to find Mioko closing a lockbridge and shaking her head.

“You can’t tunnel like that,” she chided. “I told you we had to go.”

“But, we’ve gotta stop those things. They’re abominations.”

“You’re not going to be fighting many zombies if you can’t understand when the fight is no longer winnable.”

“No, not them. The pretenders. The fake wolves.”

“The werewolves?”

“Yeah. Wear wolves. They were wearing wolves. It’s just pretend.”

Mioko rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay. Well, you won’t fight many wear wolves either for that matter.”

Wolf nodded along, hearing ‘wear wolves’ but everything else became muffled and moved farther away.