When Samuel was fifteen years old, he watched his brother Lucas die. Samuel blamed himself for it—hated himself for it. No matter how many times his parents told him it wasn’t his fault, no matter how many times the counselors told him it wasn’t his fault, he knew they were wrong.

It was Samuel’s idea to break into the construction site. It was his idea to climb the scaffolding. His idea to cross the unfinished roof to get a better view of the glinting lights of the city. It was Samuel’s wrongdoing that had caused his brother’s death.

Samuel had taken a few steps ahead, bounding from support beam to support beam, egging Lucas on to follow him. When the bit of plywood began to give way underneath his brother’s feet, a single screw held it all in place for the space of a breath. In the moment, it couldn’t have been more than a second. But in Samuel’s memory, that space of a breath represented an eternity of indecision.

Lucas was only five feet away. Samuel could have—should have at least tried—to grab his brother’s outstretched hand. He would have only had to take a single step off the beam and onto another bit of plywood to reach Lucas. But he didn’t. He was scared. Scared for his own safety over that of his brother’s.

He watched his younger brother fall three stories to a concrete foundation littered with sawdust and discarded nails. The impact didn’t kill Lucas. He had screamed. For his mom. For his brother.

Samuel screamed with him, climbing down the scaffolding faster than was safe. In his rush, he fell from the scaffolding on the final floor and broke his own ankle.

Lucas died before Samuel could get to him.

With Jon and the retinue of zombies with him, Samuel opened himself up to the pent up feelings of despair and rage that he’d bottled up for the last decade over his brother’s death. This moment, these zombies, they were nothing compared to that all-encompassing guilt and grief.

The lesser zombies on the ground were shaking the calming effects of Jon’s pacify spell and rising to their feet. Their attention was torn between watching the back of Blythe disappear into the forest and looking at Samuel. But they held back, waiting for something.

“Go,” Jon said to them, pointing his sword after Blythe. In what felt like whoops of exultation, the zombies ran after her and disappeared into the forest.

Jon chuckled and looked to the sky. He closed his purple eyes against the waning sunlight.

Samuel dashed forward with Nathan pointed at Jon’s face. The blade bit into Jon’s cheekbone, stopped, and snapped in half. Samuel stumbled back, staring dumbly at the broken dagger in his hand.

Jon frowned and backhanded Samuel away. He rolled into the wall of the barn, once again losing all the air in his lungs. He sucked for air like a starving man at a buffet skipping the part where you plate food and eating straight off the counter. All sense of propriety was gone in the face of immediate need. All that mattered was to refill his lungs. Oxygen was slow to come.

A bit of the blade remained embedded in Jon’s face. With two fingers Jon pinched and plucked it out. He examined the bit of metal before letting it fall to the ground. Behind Jon, a now undead and one-armed Yandry fell from the second story window of the tavern. It rose and ran at Samuel.

Samuel rose on shaky legs, and held his broken dagger in front of him.

Jon regarded Yandry running at Samuel and put up a hand to stop him.

Yandry slowed to a stop, dull eyes never leaving Samuel.

“Uh, uh, uh,” Jon said soothingly, a small amount of his Pacify spell on the air. “This one is mine.”

Jon’s head whipped toward the woods, off in the direction Blythe had run. He looked contemplative, then gave Samuel a sidelong smirk.

“Seems Blythe is harming my flock. I’ll have to attend to her. Yandry will take care of you.”

Jon trotted off into the woods after Blythe.

Yandry shook off the last vestiges of Jon’s magic and gave a low growl at Samuel and the unconscious Oscar on the ground, shambling forward.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Samuel whispered, gripping the broken Nathan with a sweaty palm. “I got this. One zombie. That’s it.”

Yandry leapt at Samuel, his one remaining arm outstretched. Samuel dove under and to the right, grunting in pain at his hip impacting the ground. Yandry barreled face-first into the barn, losing a few bits of broken teeth into the wood. Samuel rose to his feet behind Yandry and gave a battle cry, squaring up for another bout against the zombie.

The zombie, however, had another idea. An Oscar-sized idea, who was lying unconscious next to him. It dropped to the ground, mouth open, to bite into Oscar’s bleeding leg.

“No, you don’t!” Samuel roared, sprinting at the zombie, channeling his little league football nickname, the freight train. The full weight of Samuel crashed into Yandry just before his few remaining teeth connected with Oscar’s open wound. Momentum carried Samuel over and on right on top of Yandry.

Fully straddling the thrashing Yandry, Samuel screamed, bringing the broken Nathan down onto the zombie’s face. The blade cut through the surface of skin and bounced off bone. Samuel stabbed again—over and over—missing the eye socket each time and making small gouges in the zombie’s face.

Yandry snapped his mouth at Samuel’s hand holding the dagger and Samuel reeled back in terror. He dropped the dagger and grabbed a handful of Yandry’s hair, holding his head down. He used his other free hand to hold Yandry’s arm. Yandry bucked, trying to through Samuel off him, but Samuel held strong, locking his legs in an embrace around the creature’s abdomen. They were at a stalemate, neither gaining an upper hand. They remained there for what felt like minutes, straining at each other with whatever strength they could muster. Darkness crept into the corners of Samuel’s vision.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Now,” Samuel breathed through clenched teeth, looking at Oscar. “Would be a great time for you to wake up!”

Samuel’s locked ankles slipped and his hold on Yandry’s abdomen gave way. The zombie twisted and bucked once more, throwing Samuel’s weight up and over the top of its head. Samuel’s legs flailed in the air as he fell to the mud with a plop. He tried to sit up but the suction of the wet ground held him like glue. Yandry came after him in a one-armed army crawl. Samuel rolled away as a clawed hand landed where his head had once been. He kept rolling, right into the open doors of the barn. The horses locked in their stalls nickered and balked, upset by the violence happening near them.

Still, Yandry crawled after Samuel, an unrelenting threat. Samuel kicked at the zombie’s face with the heel of his boot, and still, Yandry crawled forward unperturbed. Samuel kicked. The zombie crawled. Each kick sent Samuel skidding backward on the hay-strewn ground, and still, the zombie came at him.

To Samuel’s left, he caught sight of the rusted pitchfork leaning against the edge of a stall. Angling another desperate kick, Samuel used Yandry’s mass to push off and roll away toward the pitchfork. Yandry followed.

Samuel grabbed hold of the pitchfork and swung the tool around, its four dull points now between him and the zombie. Like calvary crashing into pikeman, Yandry’s face connected with the end of the pitchfork.

“Hah!” Samuel roared, triumphant.

But the pitchfork’s points didn’t puncture, stopped at the bone of the skull like Nathan before it. With Samuel’s fast waning strength, he was pushed back. Two prongs of the fork pushed into the Zombie’s face, just under the eyes and straddling the nose. Splinters dug into Samuel’s palms.

The color drained from his face and he felt like he could hardly breathe. He was losing out to the zombie’s mindless determination and strength. The handle of the pitchfork under Samuel’s armit hit the barn’s stall wall and skittered to the ground, wedging itself hard and fast. Samuel kicked the bottom of the pitchfork, bumping the two points stuck in the zombie’s cheekbone up and into its eye sockets. With minimal resistance, the eyes popped and the spikes of metal slid into Yandry’s brain. Yandry died, again, and slid down onto Samuel’s lap.

Samuel shuddered and pushed Yandry off. He crawled away on hands and knees and threw up. He heaved until his stomach was empty and then he heaved some more. He felt wrung out, having a difficult time holding his own head up. He wanted to sleep. He sunk to the floor, resting his cheek on the dirty straw. It wasn’t so bad a spot. The horses had calmed down, no longer braying, or trying to break free from their stalls. It was quiet. Almost peaceful. The darkness at the edge of his vision grew and he let his eyelids close.

“Ow, ow,” Oscar moaned outside the barn. “My leg! What the hell? I’m bleeding! Ow! Help! HELP ME! HELLLLP!”

Samuel sighed and opened his eyes. He pushed up onto his knees and pulled on the pitchfork, trying to get wrench free, but the angling made it solidly stuck in the zombie’s face. And Samuel was exhausted to his core. He could hardly even close his hand around the pitchfork’s handle. He left the pitchfork behind and trudged out of the barn on shaking legs, like a runner at the end of a race.

Oscar was clutching his leg and crying. Tears fell from his face, causing clean rivers in an otherwise muddy face, and great globs of snot hung from his nose in bubbles. He looked at Samuel and yelped, attempting to crawl away.

“Get away from me!” Oscar yelled.

“Let me help you,” Samuel said, kneeling down next to the wounded man. Oscar did calm, somewhat, but shrunk back from Samuel’s touch as if he were a leper.

“You’re bleeding,” Oscar said, pointing at Samuel’s chin.

Samuel froze, fear gripping his heart. Had he been bit? With trembling fingers he reached up to his chin. He touched hot blood, pulsing out of his chin in rhythm to his heartbeat. He was bleeding, that was for sure, but it didn’t feel like a bite. He had been thrown through the air so many times he must have smacked it on something. When had that happened? A horrifying thought entered Samuel’s mind. Was touching it with his dirty hands enough to make him turn into a zombie? Samuel yanked his hand away from the wound, heart suddenly pounding ferociously.

“I’m okay,” Samuel said, swallowing his fears. If he was infected, there wasn’t much he could do about it. “We should get inside.”

Oscar nodded, getting over the initial shock of seeing the muddy, bloody, Samuel.

Samuel got his shoulder under one of Oscar’s arms and attempted to lift the man. Oscar cried out in pain and dropped to the ground. Deep in the woods, in the direction Jon had followed Blythe, a ringing clash of metal rang out, followed by guttural roars.

“What is that?” Oscar asked.

“Let’s get inside, yeah?” Samuel said, drawing on strength from deep within, and pulled Oscar up to stand on his one good leg. Together, they limped for the Jolly Holly’s Tavern. Half-way between the barn and the tavern, and the furthest they could be from safety, a branch snapped. Samuel and Oscar turned toward the noise.

Just within in the woods, the stablemaster, zombified and oozing yellow puss as if a sheen of sweat on his bald head, broke through the trees at a full sprint, heading straight for them.

“What the fuck is that!?” Oscar yelled.

“It's a zombie, come on!” Samuel yelled, urging him toward the inn’s door. Oscar stumbled on his bad leg and fell to the ground, pulling Samuel down with him.

In moments, Ned would be on them. The sounds of a crying Oscar and a snarling Ned faded to the background of the thump of Samuel’s heartbeat. Samuel pulled on Oscar’s arm. Ned passed the edge of the barn. Oscar bounced struggled to stand on his one good leg.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Samuel saw the terror in his brother’s face falling toward the ground below.

THUMP. THUMP.

Samuel’s hand slipped from the scaffolding and he himself fell to the ground, snapping his ankle.

THUMP.

Samuel wept at his brother’s side, blood pooling around his head in a halo.

Samuel dug deep into his reserves, gripped Oscar by the shoulders, and bodily dragged him toward the inn. Oscar's trailing bad leg left a groove and trail of blood in the mud.

“Go, go, go!” Oscar cried, ineffectually using his one good leg to try and push himself backward with Samuel.

Samuel collapsed into the tavern and onto the wood flooring of the inn, dragging Oscar in with him in one last pull. He jumped at the door and slammed it shut, right on Ned’s fingers; the door wouldn’t shut. Horrified, Samuel pushed his shoulder into the door. A block of wood lay resting next to the door—the bar for the door. Samuel reached for it, stretching toward it without pulling the bulk of his weight from the door.

“Lock the door!” Oscar shouted unhelpfully from the floor.

Samuel grit his teeth and brushed the top of the wooden bar with the tips of his fingers. He shimmied it up the side of the door and slid it into one of the latches on the hinge side of the door. He wasn’t so lucky with the other side. Ned’s fingers, wedged as they were, prevented the door from being able to lock the bar into place.

Oscar, finally, crawled forward and added his own shoulder to the door. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Ned’s fingers snapped off and fell to the floor as the door slammed into place. Samuel shoved the bar into place and stepped away from the door. It shuddered in place as Ned slammed into it over and over. But it held.

It held.