Free Web NovelChapter 246: Chapter 246 - I’m Pregnant
They ran.
The injured tried to run with them. When their legs failed, someone dragged them forward by the arms, by the back of their shirts, by anything they could hold. Malcolm pushed the wounded woman into Arnulf and Archie’s grip without slowing.
"Take her."
Arnulf caught her under one arm. Archie grabbed the other. The woman cried out when they pulled her forward, but neither of them stopped.
Malcolm turned and went straight for Lance. Marybeth and Aljun were still holding him between them, both of them soaked with sweat. Lance’s head hung low. His feet dragged more than stepped.
"Malcolm," Lance rasped.
"Shut up."
Malcolm shoved his machete into his belt, bent, and lifted Lance over his shoulder. Lance groaned against his back, but Malcolm was already moving again.
"Help!" one of the men shouted from behind. "Help us!"
Iyisha turned just in time to see Jerry fall.
The two men carrying him lost their grip. Jerry hit the road face-first. His body struck flat, and his head bounced once against the concrete. Fresh blood opened through the dried black already crusted along his hair.
Iyisha raised the shotgun.
Then she saw it.
Height first.
It stood higher than the dead cars around it. Ten feet, maybe more. Its head almost reached the second-floor signs hanging over the storefronts. It moved on two legs, but nothing about it looked right. From far away, it was human-shaped. Up close, it was a mass of pale skin, thick muscle, and old damage.
Its shoulders were too wide. One sat higher than the other. Its arms hung almost to its knees, with hands large enough to close around a man’s chest. Its skin was pulled tight in some places and swollen in others. White scar tissue crossed its chest in thick raised lines. Pink raw patches shone under the weak light like parts of it had grown back too recently.
Iyisha’s stomach turned.
"Faster!" she shouted.
She fired.
The blast hit, but the thing barely shifted.
Did she even hit it?
It kept coming.
The closer it got, the more wrong it looked. One side of its ribs was dented inward, but muscle had grown thick around the damage. Its neck was too broad, almost swallowed by its shoulders. Its face was heavy and uneven, skin sealed in crooked ridges near the jaw. One eye looked pale. The other was dark and fixed forward.
The two men grabbed Jerry again and tried to pull him up.
"Shoot it!" one of them screamed.
Iyisha fired again.
This time she saw blood.
Red. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Not black. Not thick and dead like the walkers. Red blood ran down its pale skin, bright and wet.
"Fuck."
It was coming faster now. One block away. Maybe less.
Iyisha looked at Jerry.
He was breathing, but barely. His head hung wrong between the two men. His feet dragged uselessly over the road.
Her chest tightened.
Leave him.
Her mouth opened before she could stop herself.
"Leave him!"
The two men looked at her with wide eyes.
Iyisha gritted her teeth. "Let’s go!"
They let him drop.
Jerry hit the road again, softer this time, because there was almost nothing left in him to fall. One of the men sobbed once, then ran. The other kept looking back as he stumbled after Iyisha.
Malcolm waited ahead with Lance over his shoulder. He raised his gun and fired.
The shot hit the monster in the head.
Its skull snapped back.
The whole thing dropped forward and hit the road with a heavy thump that shook through Iyisha’s boots.
For one second, she could breathe.
The four of them ran harder.
Then a twitcher came from the side street.
Iyisha turned, but the horde behind it had already started spilling into view. Walkers filled the road farther back, pushing around the dead cars, climbing over each other, drawn by the crash, the shots, the blood.
Behind them, the monster moved.
Iyisha looked back.
It pushed itself up.
Blood ran down its face. The wound in its head was open, dark, terrible.
It still stood.
A walker stumbled too close to it.
The monster grabbed the walker by the skull and bit into it like meat.
Iyisha gasped.
"What the hell?" Aljun’s voice cracked ahead. "It’s eating them."
The monster tore again. Its jaw worked. The wound in its face was still there, but the skin around it pulled tight in small, sick movements.
Iyisha’s hands went cold around the shotgun.
It was feeding.
Malcolm passed Lance back to Marybeth and Aljun.
"Take him."
Aljun nearly buckled under the weight. Marybeth caught Lance from the other side.
"Go," Malcolm said.
Iyisha stopped beside him. "No."
"Run."
"No."
His jaw clenched. "Iyisha."
She shook her head. She would not leave him. Not with that thing standing again. Not with the horde behind it. Not after everything.
Malcolm’s eyes burned into hers for one hard second.
Then the monster started running.
Its body lurched forward in heavy, brutal strides. One arm was gone, leaving torn flesh and exposed muscle at the shoulder. Its head hung to one side, barely held straight by its neck. Its chest was split open, ribs showing through red flesh and pale skin, but it still kept coming.
Malcolm cursed.
Iyisha raised the shotgun and fired.
The blast hit the open side of its chest. Flesh jumped. Blood sprayed down its ribs. The tank’s upper body twisted with the impact, but its feet stayed under it.
It slowed.
One heavy foot planted against the road.
Then it bent.
Its remaining hand hooked under the frame of a dead car. Metal groaned as the whole thing lifted from the street.
Iyisha’s heart slammed.
If that hit them, they were dead.
"Down!" Malcolm shouted.
The tank threw it.
The car spun across the road.
Iyisha threw herself aside. The metal slammed down where they had been a second earlier. The force of it sent her skidding hard across the pavement. Pain tore along her arm. When she looked down, blood was already running from a long scrape.
Malcolm was already up.
He fired and hit the tank in the neck. The head snapped farther to the side, hanging wrong, but the body did not drop.
Iyisha forced herself up and fired again.
Shot after shot slammed into its chest, shoulder, and throat. Flesh burst. Blood sprayed. The open hole in its chest widened. The tank staggered, dropped hard to one knee, and still tried to rise.
Malcolm fired again.
The blast tore through what was left of its shoulder. A strip of flesh gave way, and the ruined arm dropped from its body and hit the road with a wet slap.
Iyisha fired again.
The shotgun clicked empty.
Malcolm fired twice more.
The monster fell forward, one hand clawing at the road.
Iyisha stood there breathing hard, ears ringing, arms shaking from recoil.
Malcolm grabbed her wrist.
"Now."
They ran.
They caught up to the others near a dead line of cars. No one was running clean anymore. They were stumbling, dragging, pulling each other forward by sleeves and straps. The river was close now. Three blocks. Maybe less.
It still felt too far.
Marybeth looked at Iyisha as she came in, breath tearing out of her chest.
"Did you kill it?"
Iyisha nodded.
She did not know if that was true.
Behind them, the horde rolled into view again. Walkers filled the road in a thick, moving wall. Farther back, bodies bent around the massive shape on the ground.
The monster was still down.
For now.
Iyisha bent forward with one hand on her knee and tried to breathe. Her chest hurt. Her throat burned. Her hands shook around the shotgun.
Then she looked at Malcolm.
He was breathing hard now.
Really breathing hard.
His shoulders rose and fell. Sweat ran down his jaw. Blood marked his shirt, his arms, his hands. He looked toward the horde, calculating again. Distance. Time. How many bullets. How many bodies left. How many could still run.
Another time they almost died.
Another second, and one of them could have been gone.
Iyisha’s hand went to her stomach before she could stop it.
Her fingers pressed there.
Is she really pregnant?
Should she say it now?
What if she waited and he died without knowing?
What if she died and he never knew there had been something else between them, something impossible, something neither of them had asked for?
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
For one second, she almost swallowed it back down.
Then she looked at Malcolm, at the blood on his shirt, at the horde coming behind him, and the words escaped before she could stop them.
"I’m pregnant."
Malcolm froze.
Not like he had heard wrong.
Like his whole body had stopped taking orders.
Marybeth’s head snapped toward her. "You’re choosing now?" freeωebnovēl.c૦m
Iyisha blinked.
Then nodded once, because there was no better answer.
Her eyes stayed on Malcolm.
He had not moved.
"I don’t know for sure," she said, and her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "But I haven’t bled for almost two months."
Malcolm stared at her.
The horde groaned behind them.
Someone shouted from the front, but the words did not reach her.
Malcolm’s jaw moved once.
Nothing came out.
Iyisha bit her lip hard enough to hurt.
"I wanted to say it now."
Because I don’t know if we’ll live long enough to see it born.
She did not say that part.
She did not have to.
Malcolm looked down.
Not at her face.
At her stomach.
The look lasted only a second, but it hit her harder than any shout could have. Shock first. Then fear. Then something he crushed so fast she almost missed it.
He turned away.
Iyisha’s chest tightened.
Malcolm walked to the curb and sat down hard. His elbows landed heavy on his knees. His shoulders dropped, and his hands hung between them like he had forgotten what to do with them.
For one second, he looked like the news had done what the monster could not.
It had knocked him down.
Marybeth stared at him, then at Iyisha.
"God," she muttered. "You really picked the worst possible moment."
Iyisha swallowed and sat on the hood of a dead car because her legs would not hold her right.
"I know."
Malcolm still did not speak.
That scared her more.
Arnulf shouted from the front of the group.
"Ten seconds!"
The words snapped everyone back.
Ten seconds to breathe.
Ten seconds to drink.
Ten seconds before they ran again.
Iyisha looked at Malcolm.
His face had gone hard again, but his eyes were not the same.
He looked at her stomach once more.
Then at the horde.
Then at her.
"We move," he said.
His voice was rough.
Iyisha nodded.
She wanted him to say something else.
He did not.
He stood, picked up his gun, and stepped back in front of her.
