Stiff. Cold. Leather.

  Frankie zipped the jacket to her chin. It was a deep, oxblood red—heavy motorcycle gear that Dee Dee had bought for a cosplay she never finished. It smelled of new plastic and closet dust.

  Frankie flexed her fingers. The leather creaked.

  It was armor. It was skin that wouldn’t tear.

  “It fits,” Dee Dee whispered from the doorway of the bedroom. She held a pair of matching red pants.

  “Kevlar weave,” Frankie said.

  “Yeah,” Dee Dee said. “It was supposed to be for… it doesn’t matter. It’s bite-proof.”

  Frankie took the pants. She pulled them on. She stripped off her clothes without turning away from them. Modesty belonged to the girl who died.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and laced her boots.

  Damon stood in the corner. He tracked her hands. He stayed back.

  Frankie shrugged.

  He’s afraid.

  Frankie stood.

  She walked to the mirror.

  The girl was a stranger. Marble-white skin. Black hair slicked back with water from the tub. Eyes that were gray storms, empty of light. And the red leather.

  She looked like a wound.

  “Good,” Frankie said.

  She turned to Leilani. Her mother sat on the bed, cradling the shotgun with her good hand. Her arm, taped, had blood soaking through the silver duct tape.

  “We need to go,” Frankie said.

  “To the bridge,” Leilani said. She stood, wincing.

  “Yes,” Frankie said. “She is waiting.”

  The van ride was silent.

  Ted drove. His knuckles were white on the wheel. He steered the van through the back roads, avoiding the main grid where the blue thermal dots clustered.

  Frankie sat in the passenger seat.

  She didn’t watch the road. She watched the signal.

  The thrum echoed in her mind—waves of bio-electric energy rolling off the bridge, pulsing through the fog.

  The air tasted of ozone. Static made her hair stand up.

  “Turn here,” Frankie said.

  “That’s a dead end,” Ted said. “That goes to the overlook.”

  “Turn,” Frankie commanded.

  Ted yanked the steering wheel.

  The van bounced up a gravel incline, tires spinning in the mud. They crested the hill that overlooked the Norchester Bridge.

  Ted killed the engine.

  They looked.

  “Holy…” Ted breathed.

  The fog had lifted slightly at the water’s edge, pushed back by the sheer thermal output of the hive.

  The bridge was a steel skeleton stretching across the black water.

  And it was full.

  Hundreds of figures stood on the asphalt. They didn’t shamble. They stood in perfect, military rows.

  The mailman. The librarian. The high school principal.

  They were all there. Uniforms torn. Skin gray. Eyes glowing electric blue.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  They faced the mainland. They faced the barricade of concrete and razor wire the National Guard had erected on the far side.

  The sound of them drifted up the hill. Click-click-click. A thousand teeth snapping together.

  “There’s so many,” Dee Dee whispered from the back.

  “The whole town,” Leilani said. “They took the whole town.”

  Frankie scanned the crowd. Her vision zoomed, sharp focus.

  At the front line stood Captain Daria Heather. She was the tip of the spear. Her white uniform glowed in the ambient light. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back, staring at the soldiers on the other side.

  And in the middle of the bridge, trapped in the sea of monsters, was a car.

  A silver convertible.

  It wedged against the guardrail, surrounded by drones. The top was up, the fabric slashed.

  Inside, huddled low in the driver’s seat, was a girl in a pink coat.

  “Tasia,” Damon said. He leaned forward, pressing his hand against the glass. “She’s stuck.”

  “Why haven’t they killed her?” Ted asked.

  “Bait,” Frankie said.

  She knew Tasia was bait.

  She looked at Daria. The Captain wasn’t looking at the car. She was looking at the hill. At the van.

  I see you, the voice whispered in Frankie’s head.

  Frankie didn’t flinch.

  “She wants an audience,” Frankie said.

  “Look at the other side,” Leilani pointed.

  On the mainland side of the bridge, beyond the barricade, activity was frantic. Humvees pulled back. Men in hazmat suits retreated.

  And in the sky, three dark shapes circled low.

  Jets.

  “They’re pulling out,” Dee Dee said, tapping her tablet. “Radio chatter just spiked. They’ve declared a ‘containment failure.’”

  “What does that mean?” Damon asked.

  “It means they’re done trying to hold the line,” Frankie said. She watched the jets bank, turning for an attack run. “They’re going to blow the bridge.”

  “With Tasia on it?” Damon asked. “With all those people?”

  “They’re not people anymore,” Frankie said. “To the Guard, they’re just biomass.”

  “But Tasia is,” Damon said.

  Frankie looked at the silver car. Tasia was pressing a phone to the glass, filming. Even now.

  Frankie’s jaw tightened. Tasia was dead weight. Bait.

  But Damon cared. Leilani cared.

  The Anchor.

  Frankie looked at Damon. He gripped the seat, his knuckles white, the ghost of past failures making him rigid.

  “We have to get closer,” Frankie said.

  “Closer?” Ted squeaked. “We’re safe here! We have a view!”

  “We can’t hit her from here,” Frankie said. “Drive down. To the toll booths.”

  “Frankie, that’s right in front of them,” Leilani warned.

  “I know,” Frankie said. “Do it.”

  Ted whimpered, but he slammed the shifter into drive.

  They rolled down the hill, emerging from the tree line onto the approach road.

  The toll booths were abandoned. Glass littered the pavement.

  Ted stopped the van fifty yards from the start of the bridge.

  The army of the dead turned.

  Hundreds of blue eyes locked onto the van.

  Click. Click. Click.

  The sound of their teeth snapping together washed over the van like rain.

  Daria pivoted. She smiled.

  She raised a hand.

  The drones parted. They stepped aside, creating a path through the center of the horde. A lane leading straight to her. Straight to Tasia.

  As the path opened, hundreds of heads tracked the van. Watching. Waiting.

  “She’s inviting us in,” Damon said.

  “It’s a trap,” Leilani said. She racked her shotgun.

  “Obviously,” Frankie said.

  She opened the door.

  “Frankie!” Damon grabbed her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  Frankie stepped out. The red leather creaked. Salt and blood.

  She looked up at the sky. The jets were completing their turn.

  “How long?” Frankie asked Dee Dee.

  Dee Dee looked at the tablet. “Two minutes. Maybe less.”

  “Two minutes,” Frankie said.

  She looked at the horde.

  “The drones are linked to Daria. She’s the router. If she dies, they drop. Like puppets.”

  “And if we miss?” Ted asked, clutching his sharpened spoon. “I vote fleeing. Mexico is nice.”

  “Then we get vaporized by a JDAM,” Frankie said.

  She walked to the back of the van. She opened the doors.

  “Mom. You and Ted take the flanks. Keep the drones off me. Use the silver nails. Aim for the joints.”

  Leilani nodded. She handed Ted a modified nail gun. “You heard her.”

  “Damon,” Frankie said.

  She looked at him. Color drained from his face, yet he had the aluminum bat gripped in both hands. He had wrapped the handle in Dee Dee’s silver chain.

  “You’re with me,” Frankie said. “We go up the middle.”

  “To Daria?”

  “To the car,” Frankie said. “We get Tasia. We make Daria come to us.”

  “And then?”

  Frankie looked at the captain. The alien pulsed with blue power, chin up. Smiling.

  Frankie reached into her pocket. She pulled out the tarnished silver surfboard charm. She wrapped it around her knuckles inside the leather glove.

  “We cut the head off the snake,” Frankie said. “Before the bombs fall.”

  She slammed the van doors.

  She started walking toward the bridge.

  She glanced at Damon.

  “Let’s go surfing,” she whispered.