The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel by James N. Cook Page B

handle. That day marked the first time he ever beat his father in a training match.
    A glint of sunlight flashed from his spear’s point, reminding him of the gleam in his father’s eye when he batted aside a thrust aimed at his chest, closed the distance, and pressed the rubber tip of his training weapon to his father’s throat. 
    “Good,” the old man had said, smiling. “Very good, son.”
    He smiled at the memory, feeling the familiar anticipation of hand-to-hand combat building in his gut. It was a good feeling, a release of worry and doubt, a strange sort of catharsis. In battle, Caleb could forget who he was, forget all he had lost, forget the pain and regret and worry for the future, and lose himself in the red mist of the melee.
    “All squads are in position,” Thompson said, pointing his rifle toward the horde. “Advance.”

TEN
 
 
    Caleb’s team approached, Cole out front, the rest of the squad formed up and advancing on their right. Thompson brought up the rear, rifle in hand, the only one still armed with an M-4. As squad leader, it was Thompson’s job to hang back, direct the fight, and use his carbine to assist anyone who got in trouble. The rest of the squad—Caleb included—had to engage the enemy with hand weapons. It was not an ideal way to fight the undead, but with the Army’s resources stretched as thin as they were, conserving ammunition was critical.
    He watched Cole wade into the press with his usual glee, bar mace moving in a steady figure-eight pattern, an infected skull crushed like a melon with every downswing. To Cole’s right, Eric went to work with his Y-shaped stick and long, elegant sword. The sword had no edges, just a wickedly sharp tip. Eric dispatched walkers by holding the stick under his arm like a jouster’s lance, catching a ghoul by the throat with its Y-shaped end, and stabbing it in the brain through the eye socket.
    When Eric had first described his method to Caleb, he had doubted Eric’s claims of how well it worked.
    Then he had seen it in action.
    Eric could kill walkers twice as fast as anyone Caleb had ever met, himself included. Lieutenant Jonas had even recorded Eric’s tactics on a digital camera and sent it back to Central Command for review, recommending that the folks at AARDCOM (Army Anti-Revenant Defense Command) find a way to adapt the method for use by regular infantry.
    Caleb’s thoughts were interrupted as a walker stumbled away from one of Cole’s backswings, but did not go down. He stepped forward, spear cocked back at shoulder level in a two-handed grip, and thrust forward. The needle-sharp point crunched through the ghoul’s nasal cavity and pierced its brain with such force that two inches of blade protruded from the back of its skull before Caleb yanked his weapon free.
    Beside him, Holland’s twin tomahawks flashed in the sunlight as he began frenetically attacking the ghouls coming at them from the left. A second-degree black belt in tae kwon do, Holland utilized hard kicks to knock walkers to the ground, then dispatched them with precise chops to the brain stem. When his kicks failed to knock a ghoul over, he moved in and slashed at their knees and ankle tendons, then backed off to let other walkers trip over them, making for easy kills.
    Caleb stayed busy, utilizing front kicks to keep walkers at distance and thrusting his arms like twin pistons, every stab claiming another ghoul. The fight raged around him, the howls of the undead mixing with battle cries and grunts of effort from his fellow soldiers. One of the men in his squad shouted for help somewhere to his right, followed by the crack of Thompson’s rifle.
    A ghoul appeared in front of Caleb, mouth gaping, black tongue rolling in its putrid mouth. It moaned at him, the stench of its breath threatening to gag him through his scarf. Before he could bring his spear to bear, the corpse grabbed his shoulders and lunged at him. He caught it by the throat with one hand and