“Rope, Z,” Holly demanded, and then I realized why she was in such a hurry. The one with a now perforated heart hadn’t been her only problem. The glow stick hadn’t landed on ground. The floor was an uneven layer of dead bodies. The entire floor was squirming. It was a vampire feeding pit, and the newly minted undead were waking up. Holly had to brace herself against the wall as the man she was standing on tried to rise, knocking her off balance. She stomped ineffectually on his head. “Hurry.”

I didn’t have actual rope, but I always kept a small roll of paracord. It was nearly as useful as duct tape. I wrapped one end around my hand a few times, then tossed the remainder at her. “Catch.” She found the roll and held on for dear life. I pulled hard and dragged her up. Her weight made the narrow cord slice into my flesh and cut off the circulation to my fingers, but there hadn’t been time to secure it any better. Holly got her shoes on the side and tried to kick her way up the mud wall. Hands came out of the fog, grasping listlessly for her.

Holly latched on for dear life as she cleared the edge. I let go of the cord, grabbed her by the wrists and dragged her to safety, cutting a path through the fog. Her fake FBI windbreaker had been shredded. Holly lay there gasping for breath. “I thought I was toast.”

Holly had survived one of these in real life; of course the monster would use that against her. “The Nachtmar is getting into your head—”

“Yeah, yeah. I figured that out. He probably thought he could ruin me with this.” She took a deep breath. “He’ll need to try harder. The real one was worse. The problem there wasn’t when our dead occasionally woke up before the vampires could drag them out and chop them up. It was the starvation and the monotony.” Holly snorted. “He went for flash and missed the whole point.”

I couldn’t even imagine. “Good thing you had a stake.”

Holly shook her head. “I wish. I ran out of ammo and had to improvise. That was a jagged broken femur…Just like old times…”

“Can you move?”

She must have seen how I was standing, favoring one leg. “Probably faster than you.”

“Where’s Mosh?”

“I don’t know. Once things got weird, we were separated…Wait, you guys are back?” A smile split her filthy face. Despite everything else, Holly was actually an optimist. “We did it. Awesome.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Long story. Come on.” Dragging Holly out of the hole must have messed with the Nachtmar’s plans. The fog seemed more erratic, more desperate. I helped her up. “We’ve got to find somebody named Marcus Kitashima.”