The Dead Walk The Earth II by Luke Duffy

by the collar, and with a forceful heave, she pulled him towards her. As he tumbled forwards, she stepped to the right to avoid colliding with him again and released her grip on him. With the momentum of her sudden and powerful yank, Christopher staggered by her and slammed into a shelf, unable to slow himself.
    He turned in time to see the faint shape of his sister as she leapt forward with her bar raised and slammed it down onto a dark form at her feet, close to the spot where he had been standing just seconds earlier. The iron crowbar smashed against something solid that cracked loudly. The force of her blow propelled the heavy shaft through the object and into the hard concrete of the floor with a resounding clang.
    Christopher looked on in shocked silence as once again his sister saved him from one of the infected. He watched as Tina raised the weapon high in to the air and slammed it down against her victim again and again, pummelling her prey and growling under her breath with rage and fear. Each time the hefty crowbar impacted against the hard surface beneath the body the high-pitched chime of the metal rang out around the warehouse, sounding like a hammer being beaten against a blacksmith’s anvil.
    Finally, when there was nothing left of the head but tattered chunks of flesh and shattered bone, she stopped and took a shaky step back. She wiped her face on the back of her sleeve and urgently checked her immediate surroundings for any further danger. She was breathing heavily and trembling with the rush of adrenaline but the terror that she now felt was much stronger. The mixture of fear for the unknown, the darkness, and the noise she had created made her mind race with impending dread as she expected more of the infected to come racing towards her.
    Christopher looked on in shock and awe. To him she was like something from one of the thousands of computer games he had played, or one of the movies he had watched. She moved with a grace and swiftness that he could only fantasize about. She was terrifying and fearless. She was unflinching in her resolve and ruthless in her attack. Christopher suddenly felt inferior, even pathetic, compared to his sister. She was more of a man than he was and he knew it all too well. Her damning words from the previous day echoed around inside his head. Once again, she had saved him from the monsters that were out to get him. She had looked out for him and seen what he had missed and reacted when he could not. He felt ashamed and worthless and began to wonder why his sister even bothered with him.
    Before he could slump into another self-pitying abyss, Tina huffed loudly and blew out a sigh of relief. It had been over ten seconds since her attack had ended and there was stillness once again all around them.
    “Well at least we know one thing,” she gasped as she rested her hands on her knees and concentrated on settling her heart rate back to normal. “That must’ve been the only one in here. Otherwise, they would’ve made an appearance by now. What do you reckon?”
    Christopher grunted as he looked around at the dark corridors that led off between the shelving units. While Tina had saved them from attack and then remained on guard for a while afterwards, he had stood inactive. It had not even occurred to him to help her or at the very least, protect them from further, unseen dangers.
    “I suppose so.”
    She could sense his dejection in the tone of his voice.
    “Don’t worry about it, Chris. You made a mistake but it’s all okay now. It’s not your fault that you didn’t see it. It’s as black as a witch’s tit in here.”
    She did not believe her own words and beneath the façade of understanding and casual forgiveness, she was still fuming over his clumsiness and inability to steady his resolve. The crawling, legless infected had come from the left, the side that he was supposed to have been watching. His lack of concentration and courage could have resulted in one of