Groaner number one shoved Mom away as if she weighed nothing and then turned her attention back to me with a swipe aimed at my eyes. I wiggled to the left just in time to catch the blow on the shoulder, not the face, but it still hurt like nobody’s business. “Absis—” Groaner two shoved her hand into my face, interrupting the freezing command even as groaner one made a lunge for my throat. Mom grabbed a baseball bat from the closet and knocked the lunger’s head hard enough to spin her face around to her back, then started whaling on the second zombie, but the thing barely seemed to notice. Argh! If only Mom could still command the dead! But Mom hadn’t been able to actively Settle since I was five years old and started manifesting. That meant she couldn’t help me any more than the average terrified human parent. It also meant that, once these ladies had eaten me, she and Dad would have no way to get rid of them. I had to get free. There was no other option. I screamed and kicked and thrashed but barely managed to keep clear of one zombie’s hands and the other zombie’s mouth.
