The circle moved because it had to.
Not because it was graceful.
Not because anyone had practiced it.
Because standing still meant dying.
Boots crushed fresh snow as the survivors rotated around one another in slow, deliberate steps. Every few seconds somebody shifted places to cover another's blind spot. Rifles barked. Hatchets rose and fell. Knives disappeared into skulls before being ripped free again.
The infected never stopped coming.
They crashed into the formation in uneven waves, laughing through broken jaws and shattered teeth as though the slaughter itself amused them.
"LEFT!"
Bill's voice boomed over the chaos.
Saul reacted before he'd even finished speaking, burying the blade of his fire axe into an infected's collarbone. The impact twisted the creature sideways instead of stopping it. It reached for him anyway.
Cherie stepped in without a word.
Her knife punched through its eye.
She shoved the body away with her shoulder before it could fall against Saul.
