Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse
Chapter 392: The Threat

Chapter 392: The Threat

Everyone froze. Even those who had succumbed to sleep woke up as they felt the ground beneath them tremble. Ever so slowly, everyone turned to look at where Colt and Sadie were now standing before the low burning fire.

"It’s probably an animal," Sadie whispered, letting her voice travel to the others. She needed them to be calm. Scared people made stupid mistakes, and until they knew exactly what they were dealing with, they couldn’t afford any mistakes.

"Everything’s an animal out here," Colt muttered so softly that only Sadie could hear it. "That doesn’t make it better." Even louder, he said, "You’re probably right."

Together, everyone waited on the soft sand of the beach. They hadn’t even made it into the jungle before night fell. One moment, it was light, and then the next, darkness. Like a light switch going off, there was no way to prepare.

They were exposed, and everyone knew it.

The fire hissed quietly as it continued to consume the slightly damp logs. Somewhere in the dark, a survivor whimpered in fear.

Then, in the faint light, something moved. A silhouette. Thin, wrong. Crawling on all fours but with legs that bent the wrong way. Its body jerked like a puppet, too smooth one moment, too twitchy the next.

"Leo—" someone whispered, the horror in her voice easily heard.

But Leo wasn’t sitting by the fire anymore.

Sadie turned sharply, scanning the group. "Where is he?"

Everyone looked around, trying to find Leo, but it was like he had vanished.

The figure at the edge of the trees stopped crawling, ever so slowly coming to its feet. The motions were still jerky, like something out of a horror movie. Limbs seemed to be twisted backward... knees that should have only bent one way were now reversed.

The creature stumbled even closer to the light as if mesmerized by it. Colt held up his hand, trying to keep everyone silent, but the next moment, that proved to be impossible. Someone gasped loudly, causing the creature to turn toward them.

On the other side of the fire, Leo’s face stared back at them.

Pale. Wide-eyed. His mouth hung open, lips twitching like he was trying to speak but couldn’t remember how. He stepped forward, almost into the fire, but his arms didn’t swing. His head tilted too far to one side, like his neck had been broken and never reset.

"Leo?" Sadie called out gently, heart thudding. She tried to reach out to him, but Colt held her back with a warning shake of his head.

"That’s not Leo," Colt murmured, his lips barely moving. Never looking away from the threat in front of him, Colt slid to the side silently.

Then came an other-worldly sound...wet and thick like boned sliding into sockets.

The thing pretending to be Leo smiled at the person who had gasped before sprinting over the fire. Knocking down the woman, Leo pressed her into the wet sand, his hands clasping her shoulders even as his bare feet pressed against her hip bones.

Another smile, and Leo tilted his head to the side right before he bit her neck, ripping the flesh from the bone. A small protest escaped her lips, but it was too late. She was already gone.

The world paused for a second before the survivors screamed. One man threw his only weapon toward Leo, but the knife missed him by a mile, catching another survivor in the neck, killing him instantly.

Ever so slowly, Sadie pulled out the massive knife from the sheath behind her back and prepared herself. She probably had only one chance to kill the creature... and if she failed, she was dead.

Once again, the creature lunged forward, his bloody teeth sparkling in the campfire as he moved awkwardly toward her.

But it wasn’t her he was after.

Leo let out a cackle of laughter that caused goosebumps to appear on Sadie’s arms as she tightened her grip on the knife. Before either one of them could move, Colt tackled it to the ground.

"Don’t hurt him," hissed Sadie, coming to Colt’s side. "We can’t afford to lose any more survivors. We have to try to save him."

"What part of him looked like Leo besides the face?" demanded Colt, dodging out of the way of the creature’s teeth.

"We need to keep him alive," snapped Sadie, completely ignoring the bigger picture. To her, each and every one of the survivors was important. They had to live... otherwise, what was the point of surviving up to this point only to die?

Colt let out a string of swearwords before turning the creature over on the sand, pushing down with all his weight. Sadie crouched down beside him, her lips close to Leo’s ears.

"Leo?" she whispered. "Can you hear me? Do you understand what I am saying?"

Leo didn’t answer, simply hissed at her as a yellow ooze leaked out of his front teeth.

"I’m telling you," grunted Colt, trying to regain the upper hand as Leo continued to move his body in an inhuman way. "This isn’t Leo."

"I know a part of him is still inside," argued Sadie, even as the creature managed to buck Colt off his body.

The creature, now free, jumped on Colt, his hands and feet outstretched. Clamping onto the bigger male, the creature used his momentum to pin him to the sandy beach.

"I don’t fucking care if it is completely Leo," growled Colt, shifting his head to the side as he tried to get away from the yellow ooze. "He needs to die."

Taking a knife that one of the survivors must have dropped, Colt plunged it into Leo’s side over and over again.

Bright red blood sprayed out of the cuts, soaking Colt and the beach, but Leo didn’t so much as tremble.

"Back of his neck," cried Sadie, coming up behind Leo. "It looks like a centipede, at least ten inches long. It has its front two fangs embedded into Leo’s neck."

Colt narrowed his eyes, but since he was fighting for his life, there wasn’t much he could do from his current position.

"Stab the fucking thing!" he screamed, even as Leo’s head darted toward his neck.

"I might hurt Leo!" cried Sadie, shaking her head.

One of the other survivors, the mother with two children, walked up to Sadie, pulled the knife from her hand, and plunged it into the back of Leo’s neck, killing both the centipede and the man.

"Every threat has to be eliminated," hissed the woman. "Anything less is unacceptable. If you don’t have the balls to do it, then one of us will."

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