The zombies choked the narrow ravine, and Benny knew that if he held his ground, their sheer numbers would crowd him to the point where he could no longer swing the katana. Attack was the only option, and that meant carving a pathway through them, impossible as that seemed. It was reckless and crazy, but it was the only choice left to him.

Suddenly Benny was moving.

The katana snapped up and flashed outward, and the head of one zom fell to the dirt. Benny spun away from the corpse and cut once, twice, again and again, lopping off dry arms and heads. He ducked and chopped, taking off legs and sending zoms crashing to the ground. If his weary arms ached, he ignored them completely. Rage and urgency filled him.

The undead fell before him, but they did not fall back. Retreat was an impossible concept. They crowded forward on both sides, their attention shifting back and forth between the prey above and the prey at hand.

“Mommmeeeeeee!” shrilled the girl. “The graaayyyy peeeepuuuull!”

He slashed back and forth to clear some room and then attacked the nearest zom with a jumping front kick to the chest that sent it staggering backward into two others. The three of them went down. Benny ran straight at them, running over their bodies, his feet wobbling uncertainly as he stepped on thighs and stomachs and chests. He pivoted and slashed again as a massive zom in the burned rags of a soldier’s uniform came lumbering at him. Benny crouched and aimed a powerful cut across its legs. It was a move he had seen Tom do several times, a fierce horizontal sweep that literally cut the legs out from under an attacker. But when Benny tried it, he aimed too high, and his blade struck the heavy thighbone and stuck fast!

The jolt tore the handle out of his hands and sent darts of pain shooting up his arms.

Even with the sword blade notched into his femur, the big zom came relentlessly on.

Above Benny, the little girl screamed. Her fingers were slipping through the roots. Cold hands reached down from the edge and up from the pit.

“No!” Benny drove his shoulder into the soldier zom’s stomach and ran him backward into the mass of walking corpses. As the creature fell off balance, Benny grabbed the handle of the katana and tried to pull it free, but the blade would not move.

“Help!” The scream had an even sharper note of panic, and Benny looked up to see the little girl’s fingers slither through the last of the roots. With a piercing howl, the child fell.

“Helllllp!”

Once more Benny was moving before he realized it, slamming into the zoms with crossed forearms and then throwing himself under the tiny body, turning, reaching—praying.