I slammed on the brakes and pulled off the road in an impressive shower of gravel, then angled the car so that we could, hopefully, hunker down behind it and still have a view of the road. I thought about turning the lights off but then realized the highway was so damn dark there was a good chance Heather wouldn’t see me at all if I did.

The only weapon I had—besides my general zombieness—was a baseball bat in my trunk that had been in there when I bought the stupid car. I’d never played any sort of sport that required it, but back before I was turned I’d pulled it out a time or two when assholes thought the scrawny blond chick was an easy target for harassment. I made quick work of digging it out from under the accumulation of crap back there, then shed my raincoat and stuffed it into the trunk. Yeah, staying dry was nice, but all those bright polka dots would make shooting me a bit too easy for the bad guys.

As I slammed the lid closed, I saw headlights coming up the highway, and about half a minute later Heather’s jeep skidded into an impressive bootlegger turn, sending up a spray of water as she pulled in right behind my car. She climbed out of the Jeep, shotgun tucked under one arm as she fumbled a Bluetooth headset into her ear.

“Sweet driving!” I said.

“Ha! That was one hundred percent accidental,” she confessed, eyes bright with adrenaline. “I about shit myself. Thought I was going to go into the bayou.” Her gaze shifted to the highway. Two sets of headlights weren’t far away. She glanced back to me and pointed to the headset. “I have Brian on the line.” Gratification briefly lit her face at the fact that he was willing to provide help even before meeting with her. I was sure she knew damn well that it changed nothing as far as her eventual fate, but it was still cool to see.

Or maybe Brian knows I’m involved and doesn’t want me to get too fucked up because of her troubles. That was probably far more likely.

I breathed deeply, taking in everything with my brain-fueled heightened awareness. The tang of adrenaline and nerves from Heather, the fetid odors of the swamp and bayou, the stench of rubber on pavement and the seared-metal aroma of the cooling engines. Every drop of rain stood out in crisp detail. The roar of the approaching cars twined around me like harsh music. God almighty, I was ready for some action.

Heather’s mouth pursed as she looked toward the Saberton vehicles. “I’m with Angel about fifty yards south of the Bayou Zaire bridge,” she said, and I fumbled mentally in confusion for a few seconds before realizing she was talking to Brian on her headset. “No time to chat, sweetie,” she continued. “I’ll leave the line open.”

I coughed to cover a laugh at the “sweetie.” The hard-faced Brian Archer didn’t strike me as anyone’s “sweetie.” I was liking this chick more and more.

My grip on the bat tightened as I peered through the rain at the two cars. They came to a stop about thirty yards away on the opposite side of the road.

“One in the front car and two in the other,” I told her. “Can’t tell yet if human or zombie, though.”

She slicked her wet hair back from her face with her splinted hand as we crouched behind the cover of the two cars. “I’d bank on at least one of them falling into the not-human category.”

“Well, this will be fun,” I said, eyes on the men exiting the cars. Did they have any idea who I was and that I was a zombie?

No time to ponder that now. I dragged my attention back to the current fiasco. The shotgun under her arm looked like a twelve gauge. “What ammo you got for that?” I asked. “Something better than birdshot, I hope.”

Heather put the shotgun to her shoulder. “I have double-aught buckshot in here. Should do some damage,” she said. “Too bad someone broke my fucking hand,” she added in a loud voice as if to be absolutely sure that Brian heard through the open line, forcing me to mask another laugh. But there was no undercurrent of malice or condemnation in her voice. Instead her eyes were bright with an odd mix of humor and eager readiness. I sure hoped she survived this. This was someone who’d probably be fun as hell to go out drinking with. Not that I drank anymore, but, y’know.

The headlights of the other two cars went abruptly dark, and Heather muttered a curse. Our own headlights were angled away, and the steady rain added to the poor visibility.

But my zombie-vision picked up where normal vision left off. “Two coming up on our right,” I told her, voice low. “One’s crossing the highway to the left. Looks like he’s gonna try to flank us.” I glanced toward the bayou. “Thank god the water’s high. That’ll make it tougher for him.”

“I’ll take whatever advantage we can get at this point,” she muttered.

“The two coming at us have guns,” I told her, hefting the bat. “You put a couple of shots their way, and then I’ll do my part.”

The words were barely out of my mouth when she fired the shotgun, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Recovering after a stunned second, I leaped up from the crouch and vaulted over the hood of the car. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I broke into a dead run toward the oncoming men. The heavy schick-schick of Heather pumping the shotgun preceded another blast. A thrill of murderous satisfaction ran through me as one of the men gave a sharp cry of pain and clutched at his right leg.

And then I was right on top of them. I swung hard at the injured one and managed to whack him solidly in the shoulder. Bones crunched and flesh yielded beneath my zombie-strength assault. He screamed and went down hard, while I did my best to nail the other shooter on the backswing.

The second guy wasn’t a zombie either, but he was still fast enough to avoid the arc of my bat and get a shot off. Hot fire seared through my gut, with the sharp report of the gun echoing like an afterthought. “Goddammit!” I yelled as I staggered back a step, then I bared my teeth and brought the bat down hard on his arm. His gun clattered to the pavement as he gave a strangled cry of pain. I delivered a devastating blow to his knee, and he let out a harsh scream as he went down.

The blast of the shotgun ripped through the air again, and a second later I heard Heather yell, “Zombie!” I spun in time to see her fire again. The man—zombie—loping toward her staggered a bit at the second blast, but in the next breath was on her and slammed her to the ground beneath him, her head thumping hard on the asphalt.

“Shit!” I broke into a run, even as the zombie wrapped his hands in Heather’s shirt and hauled her upright. She tried hard to swing a punch at him, but it was clear she was dazed from the head-thump.

I poured on the speed to get back to her. I didn’t have training in anything resembling hand to hand fighting, but I’d been in enough scraps and street fights to know that the will to win could turn the tide. I still had the bat in my right hand, and I made a charging swing to clock him in the back right across the kidneys.

He staggered and let out a roar of pain. It didn’t drop him, as I’d hoped it would, but he lost his grip on Heather. She stumbled back as he turned on me, his face twisted with fury and hands clenched into fists.

“Batter up, motherfucker!” I cried out as I swung again, this time at his head. Unfortunately, even injured he still had a fair amount of speed. He moved inside my swing, grabbed my arm and took me down to the ground in a foot-sweep thing that probably would’ve been cool as hell if I hadn’t been on the receiving end of it. Twisting frantically, I slammed my booted foot into the side of his knee, which put him off-balance enough that when I swung the bat at his other knee the blow sent him to the ground.

He had some serious fight skills and was on me in a heartbeat, but I had a black belt in dirty-fighting-bitch. Heather had scored a direct hit on him with the shotgun, and holes peppered his torso. Snarling, I forced my hand into a wound in his midsection, widening the hole more, then curled my fingers around anything I could and yanked hard.

“God damn it!” he roared as I did my best to pull zombie-dude’s insides out through the hole. He grabbed my wrist and wrenched it hard, but I kept my grip tight on his insides and sunk my teeth into his forearm. I didn’t have much skill, but I sure as hell had a lot of will. Unfortunately zombie-dude outweighed me by about a hundred pounds and was a helluva lot stronger. He pried my hand off whatever internal organ now dangled from his abdomen, then brought his fist down hard into my jaw.

I felt and heard bone crunch, and even through the slightly dulled senses that came with burning through brains, it still hurt like a bitch and left me stunned. I tried to struggle and kick, but it was like fighting in fog while wrapped in a giant cotton ball. His eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he drew back his fist again. I thought he was simply going to beat my skull to a shattered pulp, but instead he reached to the small of his back, pulled a gun, and lifted it toward my head.

Well crap.

I caught a flash of movement beside me, and in the next second two things happened: The muzzle of a shotgun made contact with zombie-dude’s head, and that same head disappeared in a deafening blast of buckshot, blood, bone, and brains.

The mostly headless zombie slumped heavily to the side. Ears ringing, I lay under him, sucking in air with heavy gasps. A moment later, I shoved him the rest of the way off me, then wiped clumps of flesh and brain from my face.

“Nice job,” I said to Heather, or rather, I tried to say. Instead all that came out was, “neh sshov.” Oh yeah, jaw shattered.

Heather swayed, frowned down at the ex-zombie with what looked like a trace of sadness. “Brain stem,” she croaked. “He…was going to blow your brain stem.”

Oh shit. That would have killed me for sure. I looked over at the zombie corpse. Killed me as dead as he was now.

Heather drew a breath to speak, then jerked and let out a cry as blood sprayed from her left upper arm. I swung my gaze to the two men who I’d thought were out of the action. Wrong.

Heather dove behind the jeep and clutched at her bicep, looking far more pissed than frightened at being shot. Hungry and with breath rasping horribly, I grabbed the bat and staggered back to my feet, lip curling into a snarl as I lurched toward the two men. My head felt unbalanced with my jaw hanging at such a strange angle, and the wound in my gut still seeped blood, but I managed a shambling, inexorable progress toward my foes. The one with a leg full of buckshot and a crushed shoulder got another shot off in my direction, but I had to assume he missed since I didn’t feel the punch of lead through my flesh. The second one fumbled with his gun in a desperate attempt to unjam it, but his smashed right arm pretty much ensured failure.