He had to free the zom farthest from the door first, and for a terrible moment he had crouched there, staring into those dead eyes, trapped between the need to help Nix and his own horror. The zom’s eyes were milky, and even though Benny knew that there was no mind behind them—no personality, no humanity left—he felt like he was committing some awful sin.

“Nix,” he whispered as he slipped the point of the knife into the silver wire that held the zom’s mouth shut. The wire was thin and the blade was strong. The wire parted easily. All Benny had to do was cut a couple of loops, and the zom did the rest as it fought to open its mouth. And bite.

He debated pulling out the network of wires that covered its head, but decided not to. He had no idea what its purpose was, and this didn’t seem like the time to find out.

Benny quickly slashed the bindings on hands and feet, but even in his panic he was no fool. His training was right there, burning like a beacon as he worked. He cut the ropes almost all the way through, leaving only threads.

He did this over and over again, working with a pace that crossed the line into frenzy. Terror was the whip that drove him. His knife slashed and cut, and sometimes it gouged chunks of dry flesh from the zoms.

As he went along row after row, the cabin filled with the dry rustle of zoms fighting to break the last threads.

The first ones tore free before Benny was done. They began shuffling toward him.

Benny bit back a scream and slashed at the nylon straps holding a stack of metal cases in place, and suddenly hundreds of pounds of dead weight crashed down on the zoms. One of them collapsed with a broken neck, but for the others the cases were nothing more than an obstacle to climb over to get to their meal.

In the flickering torchlight, Benny saw that there was a second row of cases behind the stack he’d toppled. They were made of heavy-duty blue plastic and marked with a design that everyone who had survived First Night knew all too well: a biohazard symbol. The cases were stenciled in white letters:

REAPER PLAGUE

MUTATION SAMPLES

HANDLE WITH EXTREME CAUTION

The zoms kept coming, and Benny heard himself whimpering, making small cries and yelps, as he cut the last zoms free.

He scuttled backward, knocking over more crates.