“A thank-you might be nice.” Demons and mangled bodies and whispers and blood. Maybe, just maybe, he was in over his head after all. With a shiver, he slung his pack onto his back and skirted around the growing blaze, eager to get the hell on with their mission. He’d come here to help, but so far, it felt like all he’d done was fight to survive; the feeling settled, splinter-like, under his skin. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. “Which way to the rendezvous point?”

They skidded forward, along the slope that edged dangerously close to the Nazi compound; it was either burning forests full of demons or burning buildings full of Nazis.

Then they heard the shouting from down the slope. “Keep running!” someone shouted. In English.

Simone’s teeth were rattling, but she managed to slot fresh bullets into her rifle with shaking hands.

“Wait.” Phillip yanked her by the sleeve. “That was an American.”

“He must be who set the compound on fire.” She glowered at Phillip. “I can see the resemblance.”

Phillip bit his tongue and crept closer toward the trees, then ducked behind a thick trunk. Three figures sprinted across the narrow yard and the road that ran the length of the ridge down below. Behind them, more creatures lurched on unsteady legs, skin sliding and sloshing around.

“Oh, God. It’s more of those mangled ones.”

“At least I can shoot those.”

The humans drew closer—two boys and a girl, all of them splattered with blood. Phillip ducked back behind the tree trunk as Simone took her first shots. “Try not to shoot the actual humans!” Phillip shouted.

“Why not? They look like Nazis to me—”

As Phillip peeked back out from around the tree trunk, the girl plowed into him, sending them both flying and crashing into dead leaves. “What in the hell—”

“Sorry!” She tried to extricate herself from him as she spoke in German—thankfully one of the handful of words the army made him learn. “Sorry—”

Her dark hair was wispy with loose waves, cut short around her ears. She wore a grimy dress that might have been blue once. He settled her off of him carefully; she weighed less than their mountain dog back home. Deep pouches under her eyes and a tightness in her face spoke of exhaustion, starvation. She wasn’t one of the monsters. Same as them, she was prey.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Uh—Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

She blinked at him with wide, dark eyes—not anger, not fear. But Simone’s rifle fired again before she could answer, and they both whipped around. Phillip crouched, defensive, but the girl looked ready to bolt like a startled deer.