Blood Moon by Gwendolyn Harper (books for students to read .TXT) 📕

she knew just how to use it time and time again.

Climbing over the center console, Caitlin settled into the driver’s seat and shifted gears, keeping her foot on the brake.

Her stomach twisted in knots as she watched Booker and Nicole approach the first two Geeks. They’d gotten better at staying in formation, keeping tabs on each other, not letting the other get surrounded.

But Nicole still didn’t know Booker like Caitlin did. Couldn’t sense his movements, his spikes of frustration or panic, didn’t know what his breath sounded like when he was getting tired.

The subtlest of cues that had saved them back when they were all the other had.

One Geek from across the road was interested in the commotion and lurched closer, the smell of warm bodies too enticing to ignore.

Booker saw it, turning and plunging his blade through the eye socket.

Shoving it away, he pushed onward as Nicole continued bashing in the skull of a skinny, mangled Geek with one arm.

Caitlin chewed her lip until it stung.

“C’mon, c’mon,” she muttered, watching the two most important people in her life face off with Geek after Geek.

Movement from a nearby bush spiked her adrenaline.

It was too big to be an animal, and too close to ignore.

Wrestling with a Geek about twice his size, Booker was too preoccupied to see whatever was coming out of the thicket.

“Fuck this,” Caitlin hissed, slamming the gas pedal down.

The Jeep shot forward and she clipped one of the many undead as she swerved, pulling up as close to Booker as she could.

Flinging the door open as she hit the break, she yelled, “Booker, catch!”

He turned, just in time to grab his rifle midair and aim at the body coming out of the brush.

Not a body, a person.

A teenager.

“Whoa, wait, hold on—!” The boy yelled, holding his hand up.

They didn’t have time to interrogate him. A Geek was already lunging for his neck.

Booker fired once and the gnarled corpse fell to the ground.

“Cae?”

“I’m good,” she called, grabbing her revolver and hopping out of the Jeep.

The herd was starting to frenzy and with a stranger in their midst, she wasn’t about to stay in the car like a soccer mom making a drop off.

Booker stooped, grabbing his knife. “Kid, you bit?”

The teen shook his head nervously. “No, I’m—”

“Y’better look alive then, son,” Booker yelled, aiming for another Geek. “These things ain’t stopping for you t’catch your breath.”

Spurred into action, the boy grabbed his weapon—a barely sharp plank of wood—and held it up defensively.

“Nicole?” Caitlin called, firing a headshot.

The whistle of her bat announced her before a body hit the ground.

“Over here,” Nicole told them, kicking the Geek away and bringing the bat down on its skull.

They were all alive, uninjured, and still fighting.

Time to put the undead back in the ground.

Caitlin whistled like a bird, telling Booker she was moving left while he went right.

She had five more bullets in the chamber and a pocket full of rounds. She needed to make each count.

The teenage boy—a tall, gangly guy who looked barely old enough to drive—froze in fear. His blue eyes were saucers as he watched the others clean the street, taking down Geek after Geek.

Caitlin had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t about to leap into action, and if he was going to stand there in the open, he was just a flashing neon sign reading ‘free dinner’.

“Hey, keep your head on a swivel,” she told him, stepping a few yards in front. “Don’t let them come up from behind you.”

A broken mutter of agreement was all she heard as she fired her weapon, taking down another Geek.

“Nicole, how many?” Booker called, reloading his rifle.

“Four left.”

He circled the back of the Jeep. “Cae?”

Bang.

“Two,” she shouted.

Booker climbed onto the bumper, aiming over the roll cage and down the road.

“Groaners,” he shouted. “Twenty more coming from the north.”

“Shit.” Caitlin glanced from the remaining Geeks to the quivering boy at her shoulder. “C’mon, we gotta go,” she said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him towards the Jeep.

“But, wait, I—”

“If we leave you here, you’re dead or worse,” she said, opening up the back door. “Get in, c’mon.”

“Nicole,” Booker called, hopping down.

With a final swing of her bat, Nicole sent the closest Geek to the ground, brains splattered across the grey and white road.

“Now I’m good,” she said, already running to jump inside.

Caitlin shifted gears, yanking the wheel to the side.

“Buckle up, Safety Dan,” she told Booker, smirking as she pulled off the road into the overgrown field.

“Slow ‘n’ easy, now,” he said, bracing against the dashboard. “No need to rip out her undercarriage—”

They hit a large mound of dirt and everyone in the Jeep flew against the windows or seats.

“Meadows!”

“I’ve got it, Booker!”

“I ain’t gonna get a concussion in the middle of a goddamn soybean field ‘cause you can’t steer!”

“My steering is just fine,” she said, proving it by swerving around an abandoned plow.

Booker grunted as they dipped and jerked again.

“Meadows, I swear to God—”

“Would you just shut up and let me drive?” She turned the wheel, putting them on a more even patch of ground. “Thought you said I was better behind the wheel anyway.”

“Better than a city gal who never learned to drive.”

“Hey!” Nicole exclaimed, offended.

Caitlin gave it a little more gas to get them up the embankment and turned the wheel again, spinning them onto a one lane.

“How do we look?” She asked, gaze forward.

Nicole twisted to stare out the back. “None. I think we’re clear.”

“Booker?”

“I don’t see any in the fields.”

She continued down the road for a minute before easing off the gas.

Rolling to