The zombie lifted a pale hand toward him. Cold fingertips brushed his face, but suddenly a second body—a huge man in coveralls—slammed down on top of her. The impact was massive, and it shattered even more bones.

Benny cried out in horror and disgust and began digging his way out like a mad gopher, clawing at the dirt, kicking his feet free.

Another zom fell nearby, ribs and arm bones snapping with firecracker sounds. The sounds were horrible, and Benny dreaded one of those limp, fetid corpses landing on him before he could get free. Overhead more of the living dead toppled over the edge and plummeted toward him. A soldier slammed into the ground to his right, a schoolkid to his left, their moans following them down as they fell, only to be cut off with a dry grunt as they crunched atop their fellows. Farmers and tourists, a man in swim trunks covered in starfish, an old woman in a pink cardigan, and a bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt—all striking mercilessly down. The impact sounds of moistureless bodies filled the air with an awful symphony of destruction.

Another zom fell. And another.

The cheerleader, broken and twisted now by the impacts, still growled at Benny and clamped gnarled fingers around both his ankles.

Benny screamed and tried to pull his legs away, but the grip was too strong. He immediately stopped trying to wriggle free and sat up.

“Let me go!” he bellowed as he punched the zom in the face.

The punch broke the zombie’s nose and rocked its head back, but that was all it accomplished. Benny struck again and again. With pieces of broken teeth falling from between its pale lips, the cheerleader used its grip to pull itself forward, climbing along Benny’s legs; and all the time its mouth opened and closed as if rehearsing the feast that was now close at hand. The rotting-meat stench of the creature in this closed space was horrific.

The zom darted out and caught Benny’s trouser leg between the stumps of its teeth, pinching some skin as well. The pain was instantly intense. Benny howled. Other twisted and broken zoms clawed along the ground toward him, crawling over one another like maggots on a piece of bad meat.

While he fought, he could almost hear Tom whispering advice.

Be warrior smart.

“Go away!” Benny yelled, half to the zom and half to his brother’s ghost.

Benny . . . most people aren’t defeated—they lose!

It was something Tom had told him a dozen times during training, but Benny had barely paid attention, because it sounded like one of his brother’s annoying logic puzzles. Now he ached to know what Tom meant.

“Warrior smart,” Benny growled aloud, hoping that saying it would inspire understanding and action. It didn’t. He yelled it again, then followed it with every obscene word he knew.