Unchosen by Michele Vail Page A

circle of hungry, terrifying death.
                  All three were women, and they seemed to understand the power of my scythe. If they did not fear it, at least they knew to avoid it.
                  The tallest of the three, once a blonde if the scraggly hair left on her scalp were any indication, came at me first.
                  I hit her in the face with the blunt end of the scythe, she reared back and screamed. I twirled the scythe around and the blade cut through her neck.
                  Her head sailed off into the woods.
                  Her body fell sideways, knocking down one of the smaller zombie women. I wasted no time piercing that one’s neck, too.
                  The third zombie shuffled back. Her face had half rotted away, revealing a monstrous smile of teeth and ligaments.
                  She slashed at me with her arms, made grisly by worms and time. Her once pink blouse was filthy and torn. Her skeletal fingers clawed at my shoulders, her teeth clacking as she tried bite off a chunk of my cheek.
                  “Brown eyes!”
                  Rath’s voice heralded my rescue. Before I could take another breath, he’d pulled the ravenous corpse away from me and used his own scythe to behead her. He kicked her twitching body off the path, and the body slid into a bank of leaves.
                  “How did you know to find me?”
                  “Your raven.” He cupped my face, studied me carefully. “You okay?”
                  I nodded.
                  “Good.” He leaned forward and gave me a hard kiss. “Let’s finish this.”
                  I’ve never been in battle. I’ve never killed unless you count removing a ka from a legally made zombie (and I didn’t). Zombies weren’t alive, not really, but desecrating their corpses was another form of killing, of death.
                  By the time Rath and I joined Jon, there were few enemies left. We dispatched them until only the three of us were left standing—amid scattered limbs and headless corpses.
                  “Who the hell did this?” asked Rath. “These poor bastards didn’t even have kas attached.”
    I was exhausted. Every muscle ached, and sweat soaked my shirt and running shorts. Gore spattered my arms and legs. I looked down at my sneakers and realized they had been ruined with zombie ick.
                  “My aunt warned me right before this happened,” I said. “And this is Barbie’s Zombie, Jon Lemons. He warned me, too.”
                  “I’ve never seen a zombie like him before,” said Rath.
                  “He talks.” I explained everything that happened.
                  Rath grimaced. “We need to go. Whoever controlled the zombies is probably still around.”
                  “What do we do about all this?” I waved my hands at the dead zombies.
                  “Nothing,” said Rath.
                  “How about an anonymous report through the peer-to-peer program?” I asked.
                  “Yeah. That’s good.”
                  Rath took me by the shoulders. “Get to the school, to your room. I’m going to check around here, see if I can find anything.”
                  “I should go with you.”
                  “No, Mol. You’re the target. You’re safe at Nekyia. I’ll touch base with you later, okay?” He tapped the end of my nose. He kept his scythe close as he turned and walked off the path, into the darkening woods. My heart jumped in my throat.
                  “Be careful!” I called out.
                  But Rath had already disappeared.
                  “Jon,” I said.